


I'd Come For You (but only if you told me to)

by AngeNoir



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Double Agents, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Family, Found Family, Grumpy Old Men, Hurt/Comfort, Infiltration, M/M, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Post-Betrayal, Relationship Growth, Talon Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Team as Family, nanite reaper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 06:41:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Ever since Cairo, Jack Morrison knows three things: 1, Gabriel is alive; 2, Gabriel has some ulterior motive in being with Talon; and 3, Gabriel had a lot to answer for.So his goal is also threefold - chase Reaper down, get some answers......And get his best friend back.(If he got back his partner, too, he wouldn't be averse.)





	1. Return to Overwatch

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reaper76 Reverse Bang](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/499792) by tentacledix. 



> This is set directly after the [Bastet story](https://c-5uwzmx78pmca09x24jvmbkuaca-ix2eisiuiqplx2evmb.g00.gamepedia.com/g00/3_c-5wdmzeibkp.oiumx78mlqi.kwu_/c-5UWZMXPMCA09x24pbbx78ax3ax2fx2fjvmbkuaca-i.isiuiqpl.vmbx2fkuax2foittmzgx2fzsx2fZS03EMCIRQXW9324427518983.x78ln_%24/%24/%24/%24/%24?i10c.ua=1&i10c.dv=16), and the first two sentences are directly taken from that short story.

_You were never good at letting go. Too stubborn for your own good._

The irony, Jack thought wryly, was not lost on him.

He had pushed hard to get Ana to travel with him as he tracked Gabriel’s movements. Gabriel—Talon, really, because that was the best way to track Gabriel—moved irregularly, popping up for a brief sighting, and then disappearing for a month or two. It was irregular enough that it was hard to deny Ana when she decided to stop indulging him. While Jack had his sources, had informants he had looking for the terrorist known as Reaper, it was hard to convince Ana to trust them when he himself didn’t know much about his informants beyond the fact that they gave him credible leads for money. He didn’t know their motives, or why they were tracking Reaper, or why they were willing to sell him this information. But they were very knowledgeable about Reaper, about the impacts Reaper had and the pattern Reaper followed. They’d had a long time to compile this information, clearly.

Which was another thought—Reaper, as a terrorist and trouble to the international peacekeeping forces of the world, had been around during the early years of Overwatch, even sighted more than twice during the end of the omnic crisis. Did that mean that Gabriel had been hiding this the whole time? How had he managed that, during the crisis? He had been the leader—

But that was neither here nor there, not right now. Not when he was staring up a too-familiar road, lost in thought.

They were here because Ana had received a response to her attempts to contact her daughter. She’d sent a letter, had _told_ him she’d sent a letter in, back when he had helped her clean out the biggest criminal in Cairo that she was dead-set on removing, but he’d forgotten about it because she’d implied that it had been a while since she’d sent the letter, and Fareeha hadn’t replied to it.

But then there _was_ a reply, and Ana had insisted that whatever Overwatch was now, it at least had access to a lot more resources than the two of them had, running around the globe on rapidly dwindling resources and leads—and that Overwatch had less suspect motives than someone who sold information.

Jack had run out of arguments and energy to say any differently. Instead, he had bowed to the inevitable and followed Ana to the last bastion of Overwatch—Gibraltar.

Not Gibraltar, the original rock of old. No, this was the manmade island, designed to block passage to the Alboran Sea. At the beginning of the Omnic Crisis, Gibraltar had been under construction, a way to watch for the omnic variants that would travel below water to swarm up the shores of Southern Europe or Northern Africa. When the Omnic Crisis was over, the newly formed Overwatch had taken over three bases at the start—a Switzerland administration building, the Gibraltar base, and a manmade island nearby Socotra, called Little Socotra, a base initially built to guard the Gulf of Aden.

Switzerland had… was no longer an option in any way, shape, or form. Little Socotra was a storage unit now, full to bursting with every piece of hardware they didn’t end up selling off—cases, beds, appliances, simulation robots, one or two cranes that had been obsolete when Overwatch disbanded and so weren’t worth the cost, a stripped jet or two, some older models of anti-aircraft and anti-omnic turrets…

In any case, Gibraltar had been left in care of Winston, something that all organizations had agreed on since Winston didn’t really have citizenship from anywhere—being from the moon would do that. So instead of figuring out where Winston would go, they left him in care of the greatly stripped and curtailed Gibraltar base, in charge of its upkeep, of protecting any leftover files or information that wasn’t destroyed or removed, and of keeping an eye on all decommissioned God Programs with the help of Athena, the AI left as the security system of the Gibraltar base. Jack knew about it, of course—late, but he knew about it. After the explosion, he’d stumbled away from the wreckage and went to ground. He didn’t really remember much of what happened then, but by the time he was fully aware and cognizant again, he had been declared dead—and Gabriel had been declared his killer.

While he put the blame for how bad Overwatch got on Gabriel’s shoulders… he _knew_ , he knew as well as he knew his own name that Gabriel hadn’t been behind the explosion. Had Gabriel made it easier for others to slip into the organization and corrupt it? Most likely. Had Gabriel made questionable decisions and hires, decisions and hires that Jack had challenged and been told to just ignore? Definitely.

Gabriel, blowing up Overwatch headquarter?

No.

Movement had him nearly pulling his pulse rifle, until Ana’s hand dropped lightly to his elbow. It was enough to remind him that they were here to join up with Overwatch, not to fight.

Still, he wasn’t very good at remembering he had friends, now. Twice he’d nearly shot Ana when he’d returned to their base and saw her shadow. He didn’t know if she knew, or suspected, but he did figure that was part of why she was insisting on this journey now.

Plus… they were running low on money and resources. He couldn’t keep dragging them this way and that.

More movement, and Jack realized Ana must have keyed in the authorization codes to Athena for the front doors to be opening. He focused his visor, letting the computer program pick out shapes and filter in the information his optic nerves could no longer give him.

The first shape was tiny, thin and stick-like, bouncing with energy. He wasn’t certain about the person’s identity—until there was a sharp bright blink, and the visor picked up the shape further away. Lena, then, and Jack’s heart clenched. The young cadet… was no longer a young cadet. Still looked as bright and bouncy as ever, though.

Behind her was a huge, broad-shouldered shape. Jack didn’t need further information—only one person Jack knew was that tall, that thick, that broad.

Reinhardt. _Wilhelm_.

Jack swallowed.

Wilhelm had been left behind, so many times over. He had been the soul, the heart of Overwatch, and he had cracked when Overwatch had. Jack and Ana’s return would be a huge blow to the gentle-hearted giant.

“Steady,” Ana murmured. “Leaving now won’t change the fact that they’ll know we still exist.”

Jack hadn’t moved beyond swallowing hard but, like always, Ana seemed to read his thoughts. He tried not to let a wry smile twist his mouth at all, though he could feel the corner of his mouth twitch behind the close mesh of his visor. For all that she liked to project her ability of all-knowing, he knew that for Ana to be so right on the money meant _she_ was also thinking about turning around and running.

Then the familiar gait of a huge ape came out from behind Reinhardt, and Jack watched carefully. It had been almost six years since the fall of Overwatch, almost ten years since Jack had first laid eyes on him. Apes could live an almost human lifespan, but Jack saw no slowing, no silver, nothing to indicate age had touched Winston since Jack had seen him last.

Then again, Winston was most likely in the prime of his life, and Jack was past that bit. It was just as likely that Winston wouldn’t show more obvious signs for a while, while Jack, in his elder years, was more likely to show it.

Another zip of blue light, and then Lena was suddenly down the trail in front of the two of them.

“We welcome all and any new recruits who wanta join up with our Overwatch!” she said cheerfully. “But I gotta know—”

She stopped, mouth dropping open, when Ana unwound the hijab from around her face and mouth, revealing her features.

“No… it can’t be…” she whispered, taking a small half-step forward. “Captain… Captain Amari? You’re… you’re _alive_?”

Ana smiled, weak but there. “Yes, cadet. Or, rather, Agent. I would assume you _are_ a full agent now, Lena?”

“Ah—yes—but—Captain _Amari_?! We buried you! We—or we—had a memorial service! A big one!” Lena said, voice wavering.

By then, Reinhardt and Winston had made their way down to where Ana and Jack stood—and they came to a shocked halt when they saw exactly what Lena had seen.

But they still didn’t seem to recognize Jack himself. Or, at least, they weren’t focused on him, and so weren’t thinking about him. He could even slip away if he needed to—

“Jack, so help me if you leave me to be the only person to face this—” Ana hissed.

Lena’s wide, shocked eyes turned to look Jack in the face—or, near enough, considering his visor. With a sigh, he reached up to unhook the lower half of his visor, revealing his face.

“Strike-Commander?” Winston asked in surprise.

Gritting his teeth, he shook his head sharply. “Never again. No. I’m just a soldier.”

Ana lifted an eyebrow at him, but all Lena and Winston could do was stare in shock. Reinhardt… Reinhardt stood like a statue, face impassive, almost blank.

Jack wasn’t looking forward to this part at all.

* * *

“Skippin’ out a’ready?”

Jack froze, fully aware of how guilty it made him look but also unable to stop the reaction. He’d been on his own long enough that he had gotten out of practice of hiding his reactions.

Gabriel always said that his poker face was atrocious, even back when he was in practice, but what did Gabe know, anyway?

Shoving the thought away—Gabe had known a hell of a lot, more than Jack had gave him credit for—he turned to look Jesse McCree in the eyes.

The kid was… well, no longer a kid. Certainly not that rangy too-cocky-for-his-own-good thug Jack could remember so clearly from when McCree was first brought into Blackwatch—against Jack’s wishes, at that.

Stocky, powerful shoulders and a thick waist, a little bit softer now around the middle but clearly muscled and ready to fight. Jack had heard a few rumors about McCree’s exploits back in good ol’ USA, and how he’d interfered often with Deadlock’s operations in the southwest. He knew the kid was a devil with his pistol, and had been trained by one of the very best operatives in Overwatch. Only Ana or Gerard could match Gabriel in strategy and tactics—there had been a reason Jack had been Gabe’s second-in-command during the War.

And McCree had been Gabe’s second-in-command for countless dirty and shady operations around the globe. Had gotten a crash course in the politics that made it impossible for any other organization expect Blackwatch to operate. Had planned and led countless clean and successful operations. Had done well enough in waters clean enough to get more than a few medals pinned across his chest at various UN dinners and events. He looked like a farmer, like any typical stereotype one might have of a mixed race, Hispanic and Native and some European somewhere in there. He’d created himself—his name, first and last, his callsign, and his skills. He was a survivor, and a straightforward person.

Jack could leave, of course. Not answer, not acknowledge him, not think about him at all. But he’d come here because Ana had had a point—Overwatch had resources, and they would be useful in tracking down Gabriel. While McCree wasn’t the leader, and so wasn’t the person who would need to approve said resources… he was also the closest thing Gabriel had ever had to a son, once Gabe’s second wife had left him. He’d understand Jack hunting down Gabriel and getting answers from him, and he’d support him.

If Jack could explain himself well enough.

_(“You’re better at all that diplomatic shit anyway.”_

_“Your agents seem to disagree.”_

_“Yeah, well,_ they _can smell shit, unlike those politicians, can’t they?”)_

“I have a lead,” he began, voice rough and hoarse from the botched healing his SEP crap had done on his vocal cords those five years ago. “I’m trying to track down Reaper.”

Here in the hangar, where Jack had been prepared to take a gee-boat back to the mainland and set it on autopilot back, the words echoed oddly. The base itself was mostly closed down; the huge, sprawling man-made island had enough space to host Overwatch, Blackwatch, and trainees back in the heyday of Overwatch. Now, everything was empty, dark, the few vehicles that were ready for use were old models, and the couple of rooms that had been in use were barely a tenth of the large base.

When he and Ana had entered the base, it had been… bad. Little Fareeha was so tall, so strong now—a captain in her own right, and furious at her mother. Angela said nothing at all, but Jack remembered her from when she was an overeager grad student—he remembered her tight lips, her frustration, her indignation.

Lena had been… stupefied. Trying to be bright and happy, trying to just be cheerful, but clearly rocked to her core. Reinhardt, well… that one was tough. The old man was one of Jack’s oldest companions, oldest friends, and he couldn’t even look at Jack. Winston had tried to be diplomatic, Genji had been unable to read, the new recruits didn’t know him so didn’t know how to react, and Ana weathered it as she weathered everything—by believing absolutely that she had acted in the best way. Jack and Gabe knew how much of that was just an act, a way of trying to keep herself and her feelings protected when she herself wasn’t sure about her choices. It made for a tense dinner, and uncomfortable explanations.

Through it all, McCree had simply watched from under the brim of his hat.

McCree had to have been feeling just as betrayed, of course. He had been like the son Gabriel as well as Ana had never had, the younger brother Jack had never wanted—but would have protected to his last breath—the older brother to Fareeha and Lena. He had grown up in and around Overwatch and Blackwatch. He was pragmatic and forthright and so, so honorable.

Certainly hadn’t learned it from either Jack or Gabriel, that’s for sure.

But Jack was betting on McCree being the same man at heart that he remembered—the same quick-thinking, quick-acting agent with better-than-usual hunches. McCree would understand what Jack meant if he said he was going after Reaper.

McCree clenched his teeth, just slightly, almost unnoticeable if it wasn’t for the twitch of the cigar in his mouth, enough for Jack to surmise that during the past few years he’d run into the Talon operative himself. That could either be a good thing, or a bad thing.

“Y’ just got back. I know there’s a lotta bad blood here, but you leavin’ ain’t gonna fix it. ‘S’only gonna make things worse,” McCree rumbled.

Jack nodded, his visor picking up on small things like the pulse in McCree’s throat, the dilation of his eyes, the level of sweat, the rise and fall of his chest. “True. And if the lead was weak I wouldn’t be going. But this is important. I gotta know why… I gotta know why he’s doing it.”

McCree’s eyes dilated—a sign he had a suspicion as to what Jack was about to say—even as his muscles tensed, breathing picking up. “Why _who’s_ doing it, Morrison?”

“Who else uses two shotguns? Who dresses like _that_? Where did Talon learn those tactics?” Jack murmured, voice just a raspy whisper. “He had his shotguns _at my spine_. I’m walking just fine. That doesn’t sound like the pragmatic Gabriel I knew. Not unless he’s playing a long game that I was unaware of.”

McCree stared Jack down, teeth clenched on his cigar, the end smoking in the dim light.

“You’re thinking it’s Reyes. And you’re thinking you can talk to him? You know how he was at the end of it all—and even with alla that, you know th’ only reason he’d be with those Talon bastards is if some Widowmaker shit happened with ‘im.”

Jack swallowed. McCree was thinking about it, was considering what could have happened, what happened to Reyes. Jack had to find the right words, something that would convince McCree that this was needed. That this was _necessary_ , and that he should let Jack leave—especially after the turmoil and furor that his coming had caused. “I need to know why. I need to know… what he was trying to say, that I missed. Because he coulda killed me, and he didn’t. He coulda killed Ana—and he didn’t. We’re alive and have a second chance, to fix what was broken, to make right what we failed. And I can find out what the hell Gabriel had been thinking. Get answers I thought I’d never get.”

McCree watched him, then gave a short exhale, hard and angry. “I shouldn’t letcha,” he growled, hand uncomfortably close to his pistol. “I’m pissed as all hell atcha. Maybe Ana had somethin’ when she was layin’ low, but _you_ —you jus’ didn’t wanna face up to what Overwatch had become. You let them tear everythin’ apart, tear _Reyes_ apart. An’ _now_ you wanna find him? Now you wanna deal with this shit?”

The only thing Jack could do was meet McCree’s gaze, no matter how uncomfortable, and wait for McCree’s decision.

“But you’re right in that he shoulda told us things too. He shouldn’ta cut me outta this, or pulled half the shit he did. Rialto and Ayutthaya and, hell, Kirov, alla that showed he was slippin’. Somethin’ was eatin’ at ‘im an’ he left everyone swingin’ in the wind. I wanna know as much as anyone.”

“My lead says he’s in Soweto, along with some Talon troops. I was going to use a gee-boat to get to the mainland.”

McCree nodded slowly. “Makes sense. How about this. You make this your base. You come _home_. You help out with what Winston wants help. An’ I’ll look for him, too. Make sure yer free ta go lookin’, and keep Winston off yer back.”

He couldn’t help the sigh of relief that broke free, shoulders slumping. “I never did want to come back here. Too many memories. Too much… expectations. But Overwatch was always a good idea, and needed in the world. I’ll be here when you need me.”

McCree stuck out his hand—his prosthetic, oddly enough, instead of his right. Jack looked at it a moment before taking it.

“I’ll hold you to that, old man,” McCree grunted, hand clenching tight. Jack winced, and nodded.

Then McCree let go, and took a step back, clearly letting Jack go.

So Jack left.


	2. An International Search

Jack looked around the warehouse and sighed.

He was too late—whatever had happened here, whatever Talon was here for, it was well done and over. Still, there was clear remnants of Reaper being here. Witnesses described Reaper, and Jack had gotten here to Kuala Kubu in time to demolish a clean-up crew, which meant he could access the computer systems here.

“The information y’got is useful, at least.”

“That doesn’t help me find this damned man,” Jack growled.

There was an inelegant snort, and McCree’s voice sounded faintly tinny but no less arrogant and assured as he drawled, “The _jefe_ always was an infuriatin’ man t’deal with.”

Jack didn’t need to be told that—he’d had to _work_ with the former Commander. During the Omnic Crisis, Gabriel’s decisive and brash techniques won them battles, but also put them in risky positions. Gabriel Reyes never listened to orders telling him to reconsider, or to think his plans through, or to modify his chosen plan of action to accommodate this or that objective. Gabriel saw things in the terms of the big picture, and he and Jack had nearly come to blows over that mentality time after time.

What had bothered Jack the most—

But none of that was helpful now.

Right now, he was standing in a nearly empty warehouse, surrounded by dead or dying or severely wounded Talon grunts-for-hire that had been tasked, apparently, with wiping the information and mopping up the last bit of hardware that may have gotten forgotten when Talon picked up stakes and left. Why Talon left was a mystery in and of itself—this had once been an easily defensible, well-stocked, and anonymous warehouse and base. What would have caused Talon to leave, except if their objective changed? Shifting priorities. Something had been here—an economical benefit, a resource, an investment—and it was no longer here.

“We need to look into the underground here, see what’s changed,” Jack grunted. “Talon wouldn’t leave unless they secured their objective, or a bigger target with more payoff appeared. We need to figure out what drew them here in the first place and the easiest way to sort that is to see what the underground politics looks like and how they’ve changed since Talon came on the scene.”

“Teach your granny t’suck eggs,” McCree rebuked him mildly.

Huffing and grumbling, Jack moved restlessly between the few workstations still up, shoving filosheets around and halfheartedly glancing at their contents. “He was here, though.”

“He was. Yer source is reliable, at least. Don’t know what the hell th’ ol’ idiot is up to, but we’ll track it down, soon enough. I’ll have Athena pass this information on t’ Winston an’ Fareeha.”

“Discreetly,” Jack added.

Even though the communicator was set to audio only, Jack could _hear_ McCree’s eye roll through the speaker as he replied, “O’course. Don’t want anyone t’know about yer obsession.”

“It’s not an obsession,” Jack mumbled, glad that no one was around (and that his visor covered his face) to see his face turn splotchy and red. “I just want answers.”

McCree clucked his tongue. “Lena’s all broken up that she only gotta night with ya afore y’disappeared,” he said, out of the blue.

The conversational direction was strange enough that Jack physically paused in his movements, fingers hovering over the nearest stack, and he stared forward. “What the hell does that have anything to do with… anything? I’m not her father.”

Those last four words were weaker than he wanted, and he tried not to think of the pilot he had lost, then found, and had put so much effort in protecting as, at the end of Overwatch, the organization was imploding around them.

“Yeah, and Reyes wasn’t my father figure, either,” McCree said, voice gruff and considerably more hoarse. “Since this didn’t pan out, you comin’ home?”

Jack didn’t have a home, anymore. Clearing his throat roughly, he pulled out an uplink pen and moved determinedly towards the network server that was still left. “I’m plugging in a UPen into the network; Athena, mine what you can from here?”

“Of course, Agent Morrison.”

“Just Morrison will do, Athena.”

“As you say, Agent Morrison.”

Jack did his best not to growl in frustration as he gathered up the filosheets remaining, located a duffel, and stuffed the few important handhelds and communicators he could identify, the filosheets, and any ammo or weapons he could scrounge up as the UPen flashed its way to completion.

He didn’t owe anyone anything, not anymore, and if Lena was disappointed, well… Jack wasn’t exactly someone to look up to, so it all balanced out.

* * *

Jack crouched on the white stucco rooftop, hidden in the shadow of the solar panels slanted to catch the last dying rays of the sun. Soon they’d shift, tilting the opposite direction in order to prepare for sunrise, but the struts were high enough that they wouldn’t even brush him as they shifted.

He’d approached the port of Ilios from inland, instead of landing at the airport or coming through the harbor. Ilios was a tourist town, still making money from its picturesque buildings, its heritage, and its almost perfectly white beaches. Everything was very bright, very stunning.

Jack vaguely remembered another city, shattered and broken, as he and Gabriel made their way through chunks of buildings and boats, searching for any survivors.

(Omnics never left any survivors.)

Shaking his head to dislodge the memories, he tapped the visor to bring up its scope and advanced imaging, watching the building in front of him carefully. Inside, there were multiple heat signatures, but there was one much brighter than all the others for all that it was human-shaped.

Gabriel. Or Reaper, or whatever the hell he was calling himself now.

The building itself was a city building—wasn’t much more specific, because it had multiple functions. Jack, however, was pretty sure that Reaper (and Talon) was here because of the harbormaster’s office and duties.

All his research on this area revealed that boats regularly passed from the mainland of Greece towards Turkey, with much of the cargo heading to either India, China, or Iran. A few shipments went north to Russia, or south to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, or then doubled back and went east to Italy and Spain, but the majority of all cargo went down those shipping lines.

India and China were particularly interesting, because Vishkar practically ruled there with an iron fist and Jack suspected that Vishkar had Talon ties, if not were actively hand in hand with Talon.

Ilios made most of its money through docking fees and tourism, and had little to no restrictions on travel. Jack could remember quite a few missions around these Aegean islands—since they relied on shipping for their economy, they often didn’t check the cargo carefully enough or simply didn’t care what was being moved through their ports, and quite a few old omnic e51 and e53 models had woken up and gone rogue in the ports.

Port security, therefore, had become very important to most of the islands. Oh, not to search or care for the cargo—to put down any possible interference of shipping as quickly and brutally as possible.

So Jack had instead docked on the entire opposite end of the island, at Plaka, and had hiked on foot the 40 or so kilometers to the port. Walking had given him time to think, to plan, and to research what type of situation he might be walking into.

Especially because Ilios was near quite a few archeological ruins and the few satellite pictures his contact had given him showed a few people that certainly looked like Talon wandering around in places that normally no one should be wandering…

Well. Ilios was an interesting destination, and Jack was going to get to the bottom of whatever the hell was happening here.

It hadn’t taken him long to find some locals willing to talk for payment, and their descriptions of a hooded man with a white, skull-like mask was close enough that Jack could trace Reaper’s movements from when he’d landed at the small airstrip that wasn’t as well-hidden as it thought it was to here, now, sunset at the harbormaster’s house.

Maybe bribing the harbormaster? But certainly they didn’t need to—Ilios didn’t search cargo, didn’t interfere with cargo, didn’t do anything at all except protect the cargo…

Unless that was the problem. Unless Talon was trying to hijack cargo, and had identified someone who could be bribed to let it happen.

That was more likely, and it meant that Jack should probably call in Overwatch just to let them know. Not that they had any legal right to act on intel, even if it was actionable intel, but still. What was the point of being a vigilante group if they followed the rules?

He kept his eyes on the building, the movement of the bodies, as he reached for his communicator and pressed the familiar key sequence to call Athena.

There was a crack like thunder, and a hot line of pain and heat seared his shoulder. Cursing loud and hard—the bodies in the building were suddenly frantically moving into action, but Jack had more immediate concerns, like who the hell had _shot_ him—Jack rolled back and behind one of the struts, holding his bad arm against his chest as he scrambled for a quick biotic syringe to help his body knit itself back together. The SEP program meant he already healed quickly, but that shot had most likely shattered his shoulder and he would later need to pull out whatever pieces of bone were lodged in muscle.

He hated when that happened.

He shifted his vision, trying to use the infrared scanner to identify who else must have been up on the rooftops to see him and shoot at him, but he couldn’t see anyone. The visor scanned through metal items, but perhaps the struts were lead-lined, or at least insulated. It was possible, with the fierce storms that could come up from the sea, so he tried to poke just the edge of his head out to look around the strut.

A bullet pinged against the strut, shattering metal and stucco. Pieces lodged into the side of his visor and it began sparking.

“Dammit,” he growled, and decided discretion was the better part of valor. He couldn’t chase Reaper with an unknown sniper hanging around, not until he could force the sniper out of their nest.

He rolled away and back, snatching his supplies and booking it for the edge of the roof, keying in commands to his visor desperately and hoping that the mechanism wasn’t damaged too badly to respond. There was another crack, but Jack was one of the fastest soldiers to come from the SEP forces. Not even Gabriel could keep up with his speeds on the field, and it had uniquely suited Jack to be the scout and second in command. Now, he poured on speed as he made it to the edge of the roof and _jumped_.

Spinning around, he activated the visor program and scanned. It should identify hostiles, let him aim properly, but it skittered and fuzzed around too long, and he dropped down to the fire escape before getting a shot off.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said emphatically, and punched the wall.

Still, he wasn’t going to give up. He yanked the visor off from its port behind his right ear and from experience and long practice, he jury-rigged a workaround and snapped the visor and mask back into place.

“Soldier 76,” came a voice from above him.

He whipped around, the camera taking some time to come online and he stayed absolutely silent, hunkering down and debating for all of three seconds about throwing a biotic emitter. Emitters gave off light—the nanite cloud reflecting and glowing as they rapidly came online—and any sniper would instantly see him from its light. But if he’d rolled _towards_ the sniper, or at least ended up putting himself in a position where the sniper could both see him and speak to him, light was the least of his worries. But a biotic emitter wouldn’t save him from a headshot, that was for sure—

“That was your work in Kuala Kubu, and in Havana, wasn’t it? Was it also yours in Marrakesh?”

“Who are you?” he snarled, deciding against the emitter as the camera switched on. He threw it into nightvision with a thought, but _still_ couldn’t pick up on anyone. He must look like a damned chicken, bobbing his head every which-way as he searched for this sniper.

“We ‘ave not met before. Still, that does not mean you may not ‘ave ‘eard of me. They call me Widowmaker.”

Fire flashed through his belly and chest, an angering heat that made his muscles clench as he made out, just barely, the shape of a dulled rifle barrel pointed directly at him from underneath a solar panel array of the building diagonal to him, to the left of the building he’d been on initially. “You shot Captain Amari,” he growled.

“ _Oui_ , but apparently she lived. Unfortunate. Still. You are ‘ere, and she is not.”

Jack wasn’t going to respond to that—something so obvious didn’t need a response, and she apparently was feeling chatty. A talking shooter was someone who wasn’t intending to shoot just yet.

Why hadn’t she shot yet?

“The soldier, causing so much trouble for my employers. They will be very ‘appy if you ceased to exist.”

Her voice was damned familiar, and it was distracting. The pulse rifle was at his side, his biotic emitter on his belt, and he just needed a clear target for his rockets, something that would give him time to run—and perhaps still give him the chance to hunt down Reaper.

“You also should be dead, like the dear _capitaine_.”

Well, Jack had always been lucky where it counted. Slamming down the biotic emitter and dropping to his knees, he whipped the pulse rifle up and shot his helix rockets at the solar panel strut.

The explosion created dust, and a bullet slammed into his thigh. Letting out a breathless cry, he waited for the biotic emitter to patch him up for about four seconds longer than the one second he should have taken to run, and then he dropped down from the fire escape and took off.

Where had he heard that voice before? He knew it, he knew it, he just couldn’t place it…

As he ran, speed suffering from the bleeding wound in his thigh, he thought—for one moment—he saw Reaper standing at the mouth of an alleyway. He stopped dead, momentum causing him to fall ass over teakettle, and he fell to his knees, panting, pain rocketing through his body.

“ _Gabriel_!” he shouted, pushing himself up with his good hand, static crawling and cutting across his vision, eyes desperately searching.

But there was no one there.

* * *

“Do you think perhaps he does not want to be found?”

Jack paused, and turned his body to stare into the communicator head-on. “Whatever gave you that idea.”

To her credit, Ana winced. “Obviously, I see. But I meant… I meant more that perhaps he knows you, specifically, are looking, and so he is, specifically, hiding from _you_. More than just, _ya3ni_ , more than simply hiding because he doesn’t want to be found. He didn’t know you were looking for him in Marrakesh, or Shanghai, or Havana. He definitely didn’t know you’d be looking for him in Paris. Perhaps he’s realized now you’re following his tracks, and making effort to cover them.”

Jack frowned, tapping his fingers against the desk. He was in some shitty motel in some shitty backwater city on the American east coast—Ocala City, muggy and steaming. He was uncomfortable and unhappy, since this was the fourth lead that was either entirely wrong or he got here too late to do anything but mop up the chaos Talon had left. It was entirely possible that Reaper knew Jack was aiming for him, especially after Cairo, but there wasn’t much Jack could do except be faster, quicker at responding to leads. Reaper was a high-level Talon operative, only brought in for heavy-duty jobs. McCree was covering for him with Overwatch, and Jack had dropped by the base periodically, to both train and aid in different Overwatch missions, but he wasn’t getting anywhere doing… _this_.

“If he wants to be found, he will be found,” Ana added softly. “Clearly, he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Well, I don’t give a _shit_ what he wants,” Jack growled. “He shoulda thought’ve that before he decided that he’d give terrorism a try.”

Ana sighed, voice coming staticky from halfway across the world. “Jack, I love you like a brother. It was us three at the beginning, and now here at the end I can only say that I feel for you, and for your pain. But he made his choice years ago. It may be time to leave him to his path. All we can really do is mitigate the effects of his choices. There are so many new recruits, and while I do not agree with all of them, they are all willing to push forward. They may have their own agendas, but they are honest in their efforts and attempts. But they need experienced trainers. I cannot teach them all of what they need to know, not on my own. Winston, for all his… enthusiasm, has never led a group of people like these.”

“Neither have I. The only one close to it was Gabriel,” Jack muttered. “Blackwatch was full of recruits like this new Overwatch. Half-trained, agendas and motivations that are not strictly legal, hell, _children_ …”

Tsking her tongue at him, Ana shook her head. “There was only one child, and his circumstances were extraordinary. No, we have youngsters, but they are not children, not in the way you mean. Certainly far more adult at their ages than we were—well. Perhaps not Gabriel, he lied on his enlistment forms, didn’t he? But you, certainly. Myself as well.”

With a growl, Jack glowered at the dingy grey wall and fought not to reply. She had a point, he knew she did, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He didn’t want to think about Gabe, already hardened and pessimistic when he’d first been assigned to Gabe’s unit at the beginning even though Gabe had only been three years older. Gabriel had had the optimistic, positive outlook beaten out of him from long before—before Basic, even, Jack was willing to bet, even though Gabriel was and always had been cagey about his background and childhood.

“What did you end up finding?”

Jack scoffed. “Cleaned up some mess. Looks like Talon’s looking to nip this new Overwatch in the bud—there’s proof that they’re trying to find out what agents Winston might have recalled, and are trying to reach them first. Good thing that the files were paper and not electronic, and kept scattered.”

“Mmm,” Ana murmured. “We had a recruit telling us that, as well. Found us because of it; he was a former medic in Talon, and an old Talon coworker pulled him in to retrieve a list from a former Overwatch agent. Apparently, the former agent Sainclair was willing to give up all the dossiers he had access to so that he may live.”

Sainclair… Jack frowned. The name was vaguely familiar, but more as someone he’d shook the hand of and moved on from—someone who was fairly low-level. “Did he have a lot of dossiers? Is that what Talon’s doing, putting word out that they’ll pay for information on who’s being recalled?”

“We have to assume,” Ana sighed. “Come back, Jack. Teach them, help them, reconnect. You left too fast. Fareeha, Lena, Angela…”

Guilt churned in his gut, and he grunted. He should. Doing this wasn’t helping, and Reaper— _Gabriel_ —either knew he was coming, and was running, or wasn’t there.

Silence stretched and he realized Ana was waiting for him to say something. With a sigh, he conceded, “Alright. I’m heading back. I’ll wait for a more solid lead before leaving.”

Her smile was clear through her voice as she said, “I think that’s a smart idea, Jack. And if you talk to the people here, you may get some insight on Reaper, on what’s going on. Reaper has had encounters with many of the people here, or they have heard of him.”

Jack leaned back in his seat and grunted again.

Seeming to realize she’d pushed him enough, Ana continued, “In any case, we’ll be waiting for you. Overwatch may not be accepted by global governments or have legal rights to operate as a peacekeeping organization, but that doesn’t change the fact that we do have a reputation of security and stability, so we’ve been asked—discreetly—to provide protection from certain terrorist groups from attacking shipments and facilities. That doesn’t even cover how often Winston has had us searching older Watchpoints in order to locate resources, scavenge useable items and appliances, and looking for clues on possible Talon motives.”

“They want the world to burn. What more motive do you need,” Jack grumbled, but he slipped off the visor and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“It’s been five months. Come here, reconnect. Rest. You cannot run yourself ragged like this. You’re too old.”

He opened his eyes to blearily glare in the direction of the communicator, only able to make out the brighter light of its screen from all the blurred shapes and cloudy shadows that covered his vision. “You’re almost as old as me. And Gabriel’s older.”

“Gabriel has been augmented and you know it. And just because I’m younger than you doesn’t mean I don’t recognize my own age. Stop being stubborn.”

Jack resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her as if it was thirty years ago and she was once again chiding him for something he didn’t want to acknowledge, but it was a near thing.

“Lena barely had the chance to say anything to you. And Fareeha’s been saving up her words for you.”

“That’s flat-out blackmail,” Jack grumped. “And why would I want to come back to Fareeha? So she can harangue me? I remember her as a child—I can only imagine she’s that much more effective now that she’s grown.”

Without his visor, he couldn’t see Ana’s face, but he knew her smug tone when he heard it. “You created a legacy, left a model for these young, impressionable minds. Come see how they behave. You’d be surprised. Some of them are completely changed people.” She paused, and added, “Genji returned.”

“Shimada?” he asked in surprise. Close to the end there, Shimada had been shuffled into helping Overwatch agents—particularly in sensitive missions, as Jack trusted his personnel less and less. He had been angry and abrasive, and he had eventually left, his resignation papers very literally just stating ‘FUCK YOU’ in big red block letters across all fields. “I didn’t think he even wanted to be in Overwatch.”

Ana hummed.

“You’ve already convinced me to come back,” Jack sighed. “Why the guilt trip? What are you aiming for?”

“Bring gifts,” Ana said cryptically. “Souvenirs.”

Jack stabbed blindly at the communicator until the light dimmed, indicating the end of the connection. There was a swirling, swooping noise, and then Athena’s gentle voice chimed, “End secure transmission. Goodnight, Agent Morrison.”

Shoving the communicator into his pack and ignoring the ‘agent’—he’d fought with Athena over that quite a bit, wanting just to be called ‘Morrison’ the same way she called Winston ‘Winston’, but either Athena was paying attention to previous protocols or being pissy, he wasn’t sure which—in any case, ignoring Athena’s subtle reminder of times he’d rather not remember, Jack stood up and kicked his way to the tiny bed, flopping down and wincing at all the cracks and creaks his body made as he moved.

He _was_ old, dammit. He had always imagined he’d grow old with someone. At first it had been Vincent, when he was young and overly optimistic and sure that he could work through their differences and find a compromise. Then he had thought he’d grow old with his team, with Gerard and Ana and Willhelm and Amelie and Gabriel and Torbjorn. _Then_ , he’d thought that at least Gabriel and Willhelm were still there, even in, perhaps, a more distant capacity.

Jack stared blindly up at the ceiling, letting the shadows shape into memories, and going over all his choices in hopes of finding out where the hell he had gone wrong.


	3. Interlude - Sombra

Sombra was in the process of realizing that Reaper was a tortured soul, literally and figuratively.

Oh, he was edgy and depressed and moody, took himself too seriously and had not a humorous bone in his body, but Sombra had seen firsthand what the nanites did to Reaper’s body, his mental state, and his control in the field. She just didn’t know how he’d gotten to that point, what his past was, and if she couldn’t actually find it through sifting through Talon’s medical records—which, to be fair, were spotty and skimpy as fuck, and definitely no where near as thorough as real medical records should be—she just needed to snoop around any written records.

She learned a lot of things when people didn’t know she was there, and her motto was always, _always_ , to know more than everyone else. Knowing meant control, meant finding levers and buttons and wheels to turn to make her goals happen.

So at the moment she was poking around in the medical branch of this base in hopes of finding out more about her Gabi’s condition, and had come across this locked, ventless, fishbowl of a room. She looked around for a vent or door that would allow her to get close, let Reaper know she was there, but couldn’t seem to locate one that she could open without doing something visible that the people wandering around there would be unable to overlook. So, she stood there, staring at what looked like a dark cloud of boiling, tiny nanites. Through the thick wall, she couldn’t really figure out what they were coded to do, or why they were blocked off in that room, so she found a perch and watched that hack, Moira, fiddle with controls.

“Again,” Moira said, voice calm and detached.

The nanites swirled, and slowly began to form into a humanoid shape of a naked man, trembling, scarred, eyes completely black—pupil, iris, and sclera. His edges weren’t completely defined—the nanites were not still—and his skin was roiling like a bad horror movie, gaps and oozing wounds crawling over and around the skin to show wet, pulsing insides. The skin itself had been a deep, dark color once, but was faded and grey in multiple places. Unnaturally sharp teeth graced the half-formed jaw and the brightly lit room looked almost comical against that horror that sat in the center.

Sombra knew that face. It had been on posters and hopeful signs, on staticky 3TV transmissions in war-torn Dorado. This was her Gabi from her childhood, torn apart and forced to be on display when he was such an intensely private person, and something in her seethed when she realized she’d found out Reaper’s past without even meaning to, without looking for it, in a way that the Gabriel Reyes she knew of would have hated.

Moira nodded shortly, and then fiddled with the controls at her workstation.

Inside the room, there was a piercing, high-pitched frequency that made Sombra wince—and she was outside the room. Inside the room, the nanites exploded apart, so that the man’s hoarse scream barely started before he was scattered into barely-visible robots, seen only because of how thick and concentrated they were. The frequency persisted, the nanites spilling and whirling around in agony, until Moira grinned in satisfaction and turned off the frequency.

“Again,” they commanded.

Slowly, painstakingly, the nanites began to herd back into a cloud localized in the center, and then forming up into a humanoid shape.

Figuring she didn’t want to see it happen again—she didn’t know why Moira was doing this, or what their goal was, but that was something that was possibly hackable (Moira sure has hell kept better medical records if only to record experimental results and failures) and she didn’t have to witness this—Sombra hopped off of the boxes she’d been sitting on and wandered into the main hub of the medical ward to look for paper records that may or may not exist.

“You think no one can see you.”

Sombra paused, and turned to look over her shoulder.

Widowmaker was there. Amelie Lacroix—though Sombra had learned the hard way not to call Widowmaker by her previous name. Sombra turned, casually glancing to the side to confirm that yes, she was still invisible. Widowmaker, however, always had a second sense for people being around her. And, looking carefully, Widowmaker’s eyes were in Sombra’s general direction but not specifically focused on her, and so Sombra—who had very little impulse control, and wasn’t ashamed to admit it—decided she could poke around later. She dropped the visual shield she used to bend light around her body and shimmered into existence, her pink and black coat flipping dramatically as Sombra was wont to do.

“I _know_ no one can see me. You weren’t even looking at me, _arañita._ _Such_ a frown you give me!” she teased, flopping against Widowmaker’s side.

Widowmaker gave her a deadpan look. “You were poking around.”

“Who? Little old me?” Sombra said, ingenuine tone as saccharine sweet as she could make it.

“Why now? Why here?”

Sombra lifted a delicate eyebrow at Widowmaker.

Widowmaker huffed and turned on her heel, long hair swishing against her back. Smothering her chuckle, Sombra shifted into invisibility again and followed behind Widowmaker.

“You must have walked past Moira’s latest experiment.”

Sombra’s easy gait hitched, a small hiccup in motion as she realized Widowmaker had also been down here to see Reaper. “Perhaps I just wanted to learn more about what makes our angry owl tick,” she purred.

“You do not fool me. You were not expecting that. If so, you would not have been easy to locate. It threw you.”

As they ascended the stairs to the living quarters, where the top agents had personal rooms instead of sleeping in the barracks with the rest of the strike teams, Sombra considered her answer. She didn’t want to admit that seeing Moira essentially disassemble and reassemble Reaper—naked, which on one hand was a bit amusing, as Sombra’s realization she was bi was when she saw Gabriel Reyes’s face on a _very_ old Overwatch poster, and on the other hand greatly disturbing because there were great swaths of skin that looked functionally dead—that seeing Moira do that to Reaper had shaken her. Sombra prided herself on being able to take things completely in stride, on not flinching, and here she was, watching her hands tremble as she thought back to the voiceless scream Reaper— _Gabriel_ —had begun before he lost his vocal cords entirely.

Widowmaker stepped into her room, a blank-walled, empty set of two rooms with an attached bathroom that made Sombra wince as she hopped up onto the small table and crossed her legs. “ _Arañita_ , you make me sad in my very soul. I think even Reaper’s rooms have more personality.”

Widowmaker paused, one second, then two, before her voice lost emotion and she said almost robotically, “I have no personality. As you know.”

Knowing that she’d caught Widowmaker petting cats before, that she watched Widowmaker choose not to eat corn and carrots when given a choice, that Widowmaker had gone back for Reaper more than three times when he was in trouble, that Widowmaker had asked if Sombra was alright when something personal had been bothering her…

“Of course,” Sombra said, voice mildly sarcastic and mocking as she dropped the coding that had been hiding her from view.

Widowmaker twisted her head, long braid twitching with the movement, and Sombra preened a little that Widowmaker had not known where Sombra would appear, that Sombra had startled the unflappable sniper. Then Widowmaker sat down on one of the folding chairs—the kind that Sombra always fidgeted on in the main hall because they were uncomfortable, and clearly had been stolen from there—and crossed her legs, hands resting calmly in her lap.

“Is there a way to set up an account that would send communication directly to Reaper, something that he could not ignore without trying very hard?”

Sombra frowned, absently tapping through feeds as some new information popped up that she had been looking for and distracting her momentarily. “Like an alert? Something he’d have to focus on, if only to dismiss?”

The barest pause of a hesitation, of uncertainty, before Widowmaker nodded. “Like an alert,” she repeated.

Sombra filed the information away, closed out the lead and withdrew her algorithm from those servers to send them spiraling down another direction. Then she turned her head and regarded Widowmaker sideways, trying to read between the lines. Widowmaker wouldn’t outright say what she wanted. She wouldn’t explain, even if Sombra asked. Sombra had gotten better at reading the real reasons behind Widowmaker’s requests, but she wasn’t perfect, and it took her a while to do.

Tapping her fingers absently—more fiddling through social media feeds and flipping through files than anything, something mindless to allow her to focus—Sombra considered. Something Reaper couldn’t ignore. Reaper was—well, perhaps not a model agent, definitely not if Ogundimu was to be believed, and Maximilien had always hated Reaper—but Reaper was a conscientious agent. He followed mission protocols, almost in an anal manner (certainly getting very mad at Sombra when she went off protocol), wrote up his reports and filed them obsessively. He planned out every part he could, complained about the parts he couldn’t, and certainly, _certainly_ , always responded to official business.

Unofficial business, personal requests— _those_ he ignored.

Interesting.

“Something he can’t ignore,” Sombra repeated, running through the coding that would be necessary. Reaper was almost entirely made up of nanites that used organic compounds to build what was necessary—normally Reaper’s body, but often times both guns and ammo as he never took the time to actively reload, choosing instead to dissolve and reform guns through the nanite technology that ran his body. That meant that not only was his body at least fifty, if not seventy-five, percent technology-based and accessible through electronic means, but that his nanites were on one of the most secure and tightly closed networks Sombra had ever seen.

(She’d studied it, for curiosity reasons of course. No other reasons.)

She _could_ temporarily hack the nanites, making him unable to dissolve himself or teleport, and making him slow to reload, but a message directly sent to his nanites, to his core, that he couldn’t ignore… that would be harder. And to create an _account_ , something that could be used over and over, to send a message? Sounded like the email addresses of old—or Sombra’s various fingerprints and accounts, scattered across servers and pinged through satellites so that no one knew the true origin of her steps.

Nowadays, everyone had their ISP and it defined their communication, pinging through satellites and trackable in the easiest of manners. Communicators were built into watches and earrings, into glasses and bracelets, and traveled with people as they walked. To set up an account… It would have to be something stable, something that someone could log in, conceivably privately or without others knowing, and send a message from that would bypass whatever firewalls Reaper had—of which there were many, and extremely stringent—to send a message directly to him that he couldn’t ignore for any reason, at least until he dismissed it.

“Doable. Give me… half a day. A day, to be sure. Want to make sure there’s no problems, that it all works fine, of course.”

“Of course,” Widowmaker echoed, voice just the slightest bit tight and uncertain. “But soon.”

“Soon,” Sombra agreed, and then grinned. “I’ll bring you a poster. Put it up here, when you’re not expecting it. Liven the room up some. It’ll do you some good, _araña_ , to have a surprise once in a while.”

Widowmaker’s eyes narrowed at Sombra, but Sombra shivered out of existence, glanced again at the spartan quarters—the small card table Sombra had been perched on, the completely empty countertop and blank, silver miniCU, even the open door that showed a single bed in a blank room with the basic scratchy cotton sheets.

Shaking her head, Sombra opened the door, watching as Widowmaker’s eyes trained on the movement, and then stepped out.

It was a puzzle, why Widowmaker would want to send personal messages to Reaper, and for what reason. Now that Sombra knew who Reaper was—who _Gabriel_ was—she knew how he knew Widowmaker. Amelie.

Also how Widowmaker knew him, and why they took care of each other, on and off the field. Why Widowmaker would sometimes point out something on their missions that made no sense, why Reaper would sometimes bring Widowmaker some sweet or pastry.

Mind still ticking over that interesting tidbit, Sombra disappeared to her own quarters—very lushly decked out with soft furniture, squishy blankets, fuzzy carpets, and striking wall tapestries, all the luxuries Sombra had wanted as a child and had never had, everything she could ever want, small knickknacks and collectibles and stuffed animals lining shelves she’d put in and the counterspace she had created. Her counters were full of sharp-smelling spices, fruit, and her fridge full of food she’d cooked herself, food she enjoyed.

She paused momentarily—mentally, of course. She could multitask, and the setting up of an account was child’s play for her, but making sure it wouldn’t register to Reaper, making sure that he couldn’t find the source and delete it, or someone _else_ (like Moira) could delete it, all of that was a bit more tricky and would require quite a bit more finesse.

Her room was so much different than Widowmaker’s and even Reaper’s. Maybe she could donate a stuffed animal. Certainly couldn’t hurt. Or rather, buy a new one, because Sombra had names for all of her animals even if she was a grown-ass adult (for all her behavior).

Perhaps Widowmaker would also like food. Something other than the nutritional paste that came in packs for missions, or something other than the dry cafeteria food that was as uninspired as crackers for the most part.

Hell, perhaps _Gabriel_ would like some food. He was Hispanic, had that heritage that could definitely tie in with what Sombra cooked. She ought to leave some really good patatas bravas on his counter, steaming hot, let him have a spicy taste of home. Maybe his mood would sweeten then.

It was the work of a few short hours to set up a dummy ISP, give it the necessary camouflage and permissions of most Talon communication, so it would be indistinguishable from official communication, with a small measure of urgency built in so that it wouldn’t blare in Reaper’s face but definitely couldn’t be conveniently forgotten without opening up the message and removing the urgency protocol. Then it was another few hours of designing the code that would let Sombra track what was on the account, what would transfer between it and Reaper, and by protecting the (small) hole she was making in Reaper’s firewalls. _Then_ it was about one or two more hours to make sure that no one else would track it, even if looking at Reaper’s nanites closely—that the messages would register to the common layman, and even the uncommon hacker who wasn’t looking for it, as just more communication between the nanite cloud needed to create the body and consciousness of Reaper.

Satisfied, Sombra found a scrap of actual, hand-to-the-sky _paper_ and copied down the ISP, and the login code needed to use a computer terminal and turn it into the dummy ISP that would be clouded and hidden from tracking.

Then she left her room, canceling out the three screens she’d been working on and setting the other four to continue working in the background.

Widowmaker wasn’t in her quarters—not on a mission, though; no mission logs or requests, or transport records—and so Sombra simply left the scrap of paper on Widowmaker’s dresser, frowning at the severe lack of clothing available. All work clothes. Nothing to just have _fun_ in.

Sombra hesitated, and then made a small enote of Widowmaker’s measurements and color preferences before backing out of Widowmaker’s rooms.

“What are you doing?”

Sombra froze, and turned to see Reaper there—customary mask on, black hood pulled over his head, and smoke curling off his shoulders and hands. If she didn’t know to look for it, she wouldn’t have noticed the tremble in his legs, or the extra raspy quality to his normally hoarse voice.

Her mind zipped through seven different excuses, not quite sure which one would be the most successful—Reaper had always been scarily competent at seeing through her bullshit when she thought she was doing fine—when his mask moved between the door and her.

“It’s creepy if you snoop in your crush’s room,” he growled.

That was—so far off the mark, and so out of the blue, that Sombra was shocked—enough to show it, cheeks flushing red and mouth dropping open.

Reaper let out a small snarl. “I don’t care how well you pride yourself on being a hacker, stalking is—”

“Widowmaker pointed something out!” Sombra cut in, panicked. “And—and I just wanted to confirm. She was right. About. It.”

She could _tell_ he wasn’t buying it, and he leaned forward. “Confirm… _what_?”

What would distract him? What would distract _Gabriel Reyes_?

She thought back to one of those screens she had set to keep logging and following a certain ISP, as well as pinging back information to it, and blurted out, “That vigilante is following you!”

He paused, and leaned back. She could _hear_ the frown in his voice. “Vigilante?”

“That soldier. The American one, in the flag clothes. The one that keeps popping up in Talon warehouses, right after you leave? The one that interrupted you in Ilios?”

No need to say that she was actually very familiar with Soldier: 76, and in fact fed him information (most of the time, too late, but not all of the time, because it was fun to see his cat and mouse game play out with her leader) about Reaper’s whereabouts. She knew Reaper had been complaining about how often the soldier showed up, and how he’d been working hard to avoid him.

“He’s… following me?” Reaper asked, voice distant.

“Widowmaker pointed out that she’d been seeing him a lot, in a lot of mission reports of yours. She thinks he’s obsessed with you, and is trying to find you.” When lying, stick close to the truth; easiest way to keep from being found out. Sombra continued, “And I was tracking down his ISP, his movements, and he’s pretty good at slipping away from tracking—” (not from _her_ tracking, but it was always good to make it seem like her job was hard so she would be properly appreciated) “—but I have confirmation that he’s buying information on you, and your movements, and is trying to locate _you_ specifically.”

She couldn’t see Reaper’s face, of course. But she could _hear_ the frown, and the confusion. “Tracking… _me_. Seems… unnecessary.” Then the mask tilted, just a bit, and those red eyes that glowed behind the eyeholes bored into Sombra’s. “Why would you tell _Widowmaker_ , and not _me_?”

But Sombra was back on top, now, and controlled. He wasn’t going to throw her again. She smiled, catlike, and leaned back against the wall, keying in the beginning sequence of the code that would bend light around her. “Why, because you didn’t _ask_ me, _jefe_. Why would I just… _volunteer_ information. Besides, you know me.” She let her invisibility shimmer into existence as she purred, “Where’s the fun in playing fair?”

Then she ducked down and between Reaper and the wall, knowing he’d more likely expect her to go the easy route, back towards her room and the direction of the most area and most space to maneuver. His coat brushed against the backs of her legs and she darted away.

Not her best line, of course, and definitely not exactly something that answered why she would be confirming something with _Widowmaker_ , of all people, instead of holding the knowledge to herself, but hopefully the news of the soldier’s attention would be enough to throw him from asking questions.

After all, whenever that _americano_ popped up, Reaper wasn’t exactly the most composed or controlled. It should distract him from—

“Stop creeping into Widow’s rooms, or I’ll leave you in an Ecopoint,” Reaper snarled.

She felt a small measure of shame—she _had_ taken Widowmaker’s measurements, after all—but for the most part, Sombra was content with how that had played out.

For the most part.


	4. Return to Overwatch (part II)

“Are most missions this boring?”

“Chatter,” Jack said reflexively, though he privately agreed. Simply moving a truck from one part of the city to another was a pretty boring task, though theoretically he knew that the Los Muertos gang was regularly attacking the supply trucks for the water treatment kits and the food supplies—

But walking patrol around slow-moving navTanks was boring.

“ _Chatter_. As if we’re on some really time-sensitive, high-stakes mission.” That was the young girl, the ROK recruit that had been part of the MEKA program and was loaned out to the Overwatch group. She and the other youngster, the young Brazilian who seemed perpetually upbeat and peppy, always seemed to hone in on him particularly. He wasn’t sure, though—if he was sure, he could snap at them without any type of guilt. However, it could just be that they were _not_ aiming at him specifically, and he just was that out of touch with nowadays culture and way of speaking.

…It was probably that last one, to be honest.

“I’ve counted thirteen red shutters.” That was the younger Shimada, the former Overwatch agent. Or, rather, Blackwatch agent that had worked with Overwatch at the end of it all, back when Blackwatch had been frozen and the agents had been shuffled around to see if they could slot into the Overwatch structure or if they had to be let go. Genji, Jack was pretty sure.

The words, though, made no sense. Jack frowned to himself, trying to figure out what that had to do with anything.

“I saw fifteen green shutters!” the young healer called out. “Got you beat!”

Jack opened his mouth.

Something pointy jabbed into his gut, and he let out a huff of breath as he fought to drag in air.

“Let them have their fun,” Ana said severely. “They’re children. And they’re bored.”

Jack made sure that his communication mic was off before hissing out a long stream of curse words.

“Oh stop being a baby. I didn’t hit you _that_ hard. You have the muscles. You’re fine.”

The one downside of his visor was that he couldn’t glare at her properly, even if he was looking at her scathingly. “That was my kidney, bitch,” he ground out. “And I was just going to ask if she was right.”

Ana paused, and stared at him, considering. “Are you bored, Jack?”

“At least if I’m traveling I’m not a slow-moving guard for… _water treatment pieces_.”

After a few more moments of walking, where Jack recovered his breath and Ana looked thoughtfully at the cobbled street, she said quietly, “That, I feel, was always the problem with you and Gabriel. You looked for the biggest action you could take, and forgot that the smallest actions can have the same level. These people here lack basic supplies. They need to drink water to survive—they can make a kitchen garden with clean soil, but without water, without nourishment for their plants, their children, themselves, what can they do? Nothing. And there is great money made here. The different gangs here control the water pipes, and families have to pay to continue to have running water. The government does not care, or does not have the resources to protect them. Sometimes the gang is, in essence, the government. Cairo was a good example of this, and the reason I was so reluctant to leave. Overwatch came in, Jack, swept in and destroyed the giant threat, but the threat had already destabilized so much, had harmed so many. Scavengers came, picked at the corpse of the country and became the puppeteers of society.”

She leaned against the slow-moving truck, her hand tapping against the metal side, and continued slowly, as if feeling out her words ahead of time, “Gabriel always looked for solutions without caring for how they looked in front of the press. You always looked for presentation first, careful of how others would perceive you. But the both of you were big-picture people. Oh, you cared for people, don’t get me wrong. You suffered when people died, when civilians were lost—even back in the Crisis, when we had to choose between defending a small town or a metropolitan city, I saw your pain. But the both of you never looked for small-scale solutions.

“This, right here,” she added, patting the side of the truck, and looking at him directly, eyes fierce, “ _this_ is a small-scale solution. If people have the ability to purify water, to ensure they aren’t poisoned by leftover chemicals from the Crisis, to get this for _free_ instead of paying weekly for a purifier or purification treatment provided by the gangs—this will enable so many people to have _lives_. To have a family, and to be free in some small way. To grow food, to bathe, to wash clothes. This provides a _home_.”

Jack stared at Ana, throat tight, unsure on how to respond to that.

She didn’t appear to care that he had no response—she increased her speed until she could grab onto the nearest handle, pulling herself up onto the navTank and positioned herself so she could watch the surrounding street.

Still a bit thrown, Jack followed alongside the heavy-moving vehicle. He—had no idea she thought that way. She knew the two of them almost since the beginning of the Omnic Crisis, and she was very rarely wrong, especially about people. She was most likely correct in her assessment of them…

But it wasn’t flattering, and it wasn’t something Jack wanted to think about, even if he should.

He became aware of an insistent beeping, and he turned back on the public communication channel to hear the young agent Song arguing heatedly with Shimada over whether or not he was a real ninja.

“Is there any way we could perhaps table this discussion?” came Winston’s weary voice, and Jack had to smile.

He messed up, yeah. But he had a chance, now, to make things right, to fix what had happened and make sure Overwatch didn’t have the same mistakes it had before.

He may not have wanted to come to Overwatch before, but after meeting these kids and seeing the echoes of his team from before… He was going to do his best to make sure this new organization succeeded.

* * *

“You seem to be staying, is that right, Morrison?”

Jack looked up from where he’d been flipping through the various leads his source had dug up, searching for anything that looked like Reaper’s signature activity. “I’m sorry?” he grunted, forcing himself to push away the patterns he’d been trying to piece together.

“You’re staying with the organization?”

Jack hesitated, considering. “I… am here for now, Winston. Strike-Commander.”

“Please, just Winston is fine,” the ape chuckled, moving to sit himself beside the table in the opened and cleaned cafeteria hall that was a common meeting space for most, if not all, the currently active agents in the recalled Overwatch. “I know you have said, multiple times, you did not want to be Strike-Commander. But I feel that you’re still holding yourself apart from Overwatch, and I would like to know if you’re planning on leaving again, or if you intend to stay and join the recall.”

Jack narrowed his eyes (not that Winston could see it, behind the visor, but still) and considered whether Ana and Fareeha and Torbjorn had put Winston up to this.

(Wilhelm still hadn’t… fully forgiven Jack, and it ached in some ways, but Jack understood and respected Wil’s anger.)

“You see, with you here, you can help instruct others. Your grasp of strategy was renowned, and your ability to build bridges practically legendary. Overwatch doesn’t need the UN to legitimize it; if it is legitimized by enough governments, we can operate more or less openly without having too much trouble fall down upon our heads. I could certainly use a consultant, and another teacher, if you’re staying.”

Jack felt the familiar anger boil up, and took a moment to pause and consider what Winston was asking. While it felt like a curtailing of his freedom, asking him to commit to an organization he had given his life to, had poured his soul into, and had then been brutally betrayed by his second in command and the international community…

Overwatch, for Winston, had always been a home. A place where he wasn’t taken away for experimentation, where he was given resources and access to scientific articles and tools. A place that had always strove to make the world a better place, even when it was hard.

Winston wasn’t asking because he expected Jack to step into the role he had had before. He wasn’t even asking because he expected Jack to join the strike teams.

Pulling his emotions in check, Jack cleared his throat and considered his words carefully. “I’m not… leaving. Not soon. I’ll need to leave at some point, but I’m hoping to use this Gibraltar base as a home base, to be around. I can consult, or teach, or whatever. And I can help with more missions, like this past one.”

Winston heaved a sigh. “I’ve got to say, I’m glad you’re sticking around. I know there’s some friction here between you and the others, but I’m hoping that it will smooth out. We’re receiving some new recruits today, and as long as you let me know ahead of time when you’re leaving, we could really appreciate the help. I know you had reservations about being here, and Ana has told me you’ve been trying to track down Reaper? I assume that’s why McCree and Athena have been in cahoots these past few months, and what they’ve been doing. Also why some of the missions have been in strange and new places.”

Jack licked his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. “Y-yes,” he said, dragging the word out. He didn’t really want to let anyone know about Reaper, and why he was tracking the man down. McCree was the exception, because of how McCree was practically Gabriel’s adopted son, and even then Jack had only told McCree anything because he wanted McCree to not question him going.

It was a bit awkward, Jack realized, that he still had the mentality that he shouldn’t be questioned about his comings and goings. When he _was_ the Strike-Commander, the only people who questioned his decisions was Gabriel (that asshole) and the UN liaison.

…And sometimes the UN council, though in general he did that through reports, not in person.

It was a little odd, having someone else asking him to account for his intentions, and he laughed a bit at himself for that as Winston clapped his shoulder and then lumbered away.

* * *

Jack was standing in front of one of the large, floor-to-ceiling windows that was cut out of the cliff, watching the sunset and trying to put his thoughts into some kind of order. Ana had taken him to task for being like a ghost, someone who wasn’t interacting and wasn’t letting other people in.

_“Just because Gabriel hurt you doesn’t mean the people here deserve you lashing out at them. Fareeha and Lena want to reconnect with you, want to know you again. You owe it to at least let them try.”_

And he _had_ been trying. He’d started trying to eat with the rest of the team during their communal meals, trying to ask questions and be… well, not that he was forcing himself to be interested in their lives, he was genuinely interested, it was just… hard for him to work those questions into the conversation in a natural way. For all that he was a people pleaser, he was very bad at understanding others and being natural.

Bless Fareeha, she tried. Her anger had always been more at Ana than Jack, and Jack’s return had been a happy event that coincided with someone who had left her to grow up on her own. Lena… Lena put on a happy face. She’d never once said anything negative to him.

She just… put distance, between them. Got quieter, less bubbly, more serious, when he was around. He was trying to do something to ease the tensions, but it was hard for him to figure out how to apologize for staying dead.

Hell, it was hard to say it out loud without sounding like an asshole. ‘Sorry, I lost my eyesight and was on bedrest for three months, and was in intense physical therapy to get me used to my visual prosthetic for four more months, and by the time I had come back people had buried an empty casket and moved on, painting me a martyr killed by Gabriel, and when I went back to the headquarters for some kind of clue the only person there was Reaper—so I started a six-year-long obsession on finding him and making him pay?’

Well, he’d always known he wasn’t the most well-adjusted of their group.

Motion, and then a sense of someone much larger than him, made him glance away from the sunset to see Wilhelm standing there, silent and solemn, eyes trained out on the horizon.

Wilhelm… was a different pickle. His heart was too soft, too easy, to ever really be angry, which made his uncharacteristic quietness and stillness all the more unsettling. Jack figured that that was how Wilhelm showed his anger. He hadn’t wanted to intrude or even try with Wilhelm, not yet—it was hard enough with Fareeha and Lena, who were younger and didn’t want to bring any too-sensitive topics to the table. Wilhelm…

Wilhelm, Ana, Torbjorn, Gabriel, and Jack had been the original core of Overwatch. They had been the basis of the entire peacekeeping organization. They had known each other through the crisis, had fought with each other and for each other. When Wilhelm had come to Overwatch—as a replacement for his mentor, someone who had been immediately considered for one of the first formal Overwatch agents and a teacher to future agents—the UN had frowned upon a foolhardy, overly exuberant golden retriever of a giant who never seemed to know his own strength, who reveled in the legends and tales told about him, and who was well-known for his inability to stay out of fights.

Jack had seen a very quiet young man, who clearly was trying very hard to keep himself small and still, and looked at Gabriel, who was looking at Wilhelm measuringly.

“Maybe not a teacher, but an agent. A good one,” Gabriel had said. “And if the UN gives you trouble over accepting someone like him, point out that most of the Crusader units are retired and happy, and unwilling to travel abroad and fix the problems of the crisis. A willing Crusader is better than none, regardless of his reputation.”

So Jack looked back at the horizon, feeling Wil step up to be in line with him.

Quietly, Wilhelm said, “I thought I could understand why you never… told anyone. I know, after all of this, after I was… forced to leave, after everything, I did not want to be reminded. I wanted to travel with my companion, I wanted a life, I wanted a family. I wanted to make the world a better place, but I also wanted _roots_. But you did not want roots. You kept fighting, if in a different way than Overwatch, and you never once… you never addressed all the rumors. All the tales being told. They called Gabriel such _terrible_ things and there was no one… no one to gainsay them. We were left with no clues, nothing, just empty caskets and lost lives and rubble. We rebuilt, and you did too, but you never considered us in your rebuilding. You would have never answered the recall unless you needed Athena and her resources. Am I right?”

Jack swallowed, and forced his voice to be as steady as his messed up vocal cords could be. “You are.”

Wil heaved a huge sigh, his shoulders sinking and curving under the weight of his thoughts. “I need to know why you decided this. Why you threw us away in search of your revenge. Because it would only be revenge, I know this. I know there was always great anger in you, great capacity to hold a grudge and dig in and fight. You never would give up. In that, you were much like Gabriel. But you threw us away instead of asking us for help, and you decided you needed to do it all on your own.”

Jack found himself, as with McCree so many months ago, trying to find a way to piece together his thoughts in a way that would let Wilhelm understand. “At first… at first I couldn’t. Not for at least half a year, a bit longer. And then… you all seemed to move on. To find homes, or families, and it was just me. I didn’t want to drag anyone down, and… I didn’t think anyone would care. If everyone thought I was dead, I could do things, move around, without setting off any alarms. I could search for what really happened at HQ-Swiss without… alerting anyone. And maybe…”

He swallowed again, shoved down his pride, and thought wryly Ana would be so proud of how he was facing his emotions and his failures, even if she was more than a little bit of a hypocrite to give him that advice.

“And maybe I was a coward. I wanted the easy way, I wanted to get things done fast, and I didn’t let myself think about anything except my goals.”

There was absolute silence, everyone else nowhere near here—this old observation room, meant to bring light into a waiting room designed for visiting dignitaries and VIPs like generals and ambassadors. The new Overwatch was gathered for the evening meal, in a communal kitchen three levels below, laughing and teasing and living with one another, happy and at home.

“For this honesty, I thank you. I do not know when… or even _if_ … we could return to where we once were. I lost so much, on that day. Jack, I lost people I thought were my closest friends. I had no one. And then to know you were alive, and you never bothered to even… reach out? Send me a message?”

Jack—impulsively, probably stupidly—put his hand out and let it rest on one of those thick, tree-trunk like arms, feeling the slight tremble of age and emotion beneath his touch.

“Ach, Jack. We are no longer who we once were. We will move forward, I know. That is the nature of the world. But as we once were… no, those doors are long closed. It will take time.”

“I understand,” Jack rumbled, voice thick and rough with more than just his destroyed voice.

Almost protectively, Wilhelm Reinhardt turned and carefully gathered Jack up into a careful hug.

“But do not hold yourself back from our groups because of me. Get to know others,” he murmured, though with Jack pressed against him it sounded like thunder.

Then Wil was walking away, towards the stairs, leaving Jack staring out at the deep blue twilight sky.


	5. Interlude - Widowmaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> google translate tells me the korean words for 'grandpa' and 'old man;' my apologies if it's wrong x.x;;

Widowmaker found herself humming as she crouched in the rafters of the warehouse. It had happened before, and her handler had always said it was a sign of disrupted ability, and that she needed to report to the lab and get it fixed. Still, it wasn’t as if she could abandon her post in the field to do that.

She was so dreadfully bored.

Below her, in the darkened warehouse floor and second level, a battle was being waged. She watched it negligently—she had no energy or care to bestir herself to defend the rank and file members. They treated her badly, talked to her as if she didn’t understand anything, and in general messed with her gun and ammo.

She didn’t care about them enough to do anything as they died.

And die they did, or at least get seriously wounded. There was a blinking light zipping from one side of the warehouse to the other—that damned enthusiastic girl. The one that had nearly stopped her from making one of her greatest kills. Widowmaker debated taking her out, but she was being ignored and none of the Overwatch agents had noticed her, so taking a potshot at a teleporting girl-child wouldn’t exactly keep Widowmaker out of the fight.

There were other agents, of course—some large man that had an enormous hook, who looked like nothing could actually stop him, and a young man with some interesting sounding music that seemed to throb angrily as he skated and zipped around almost as fast as the teleporting girl.

Her eyes trailed lazily over the field below before her eyes zeroed in on one of the Overwatch figures below, at the double door that led to the trucks that had been in the process of being loaded. Why they were here, storming this base, she didn’t know or care—the base itself wasn’t important, and since she had no directions to stop them from doing anything, she wasn’t going to stop them. The upper echelon had already left, all sensitive material had already been removed from computers, and all that was left was resources like missiles, generators, and ammunition. Granted, her handler had _complained_ about losing the resources, but he had never outright told her to protect them, so she didn’t much care if Overwatch stole them or destroyed them.

She didn’t care for much, anymore. Except for a few key people.

(And an interesting painting, by a French painter. Edgar Degas. It had appeared in her room one day, along with a very nice and striking dress, and some loose and comfortable pants and turtlenecks. She had never really owned _things_ before, and she knew who had brought those things into her room.)

(She treasured them. Greatly.)

But one person she put herself out there for, and had risked her life for to make sure he got back safely, every single time. He was familiar, something she remembered from… _before_ , even. Not that she could tell her handler that she remembered anything at all from before, without being put into the not-so-tender care of Moira.

But she would try and help one person.

Reaper was dying, under Talon. Slowly and surely, she was watching his body decay. Under his mask, his skin was peeling and gaping, and his ability to control his nanites was wearing away. Moira viewed him as a particularly interesting science experiment, and Ogundimu just wanted Reaper to keep training the troops and securing resources. Sombra… Sombra might care for him. Widowmaker had come across Sombra bringing Reaper some flan.

But no one else cared for him. He certainly wasn’t caring for himself.

She knew, however, that there was someone _looking_ for him. Someone who might care for him. Someone who certainly had better intentions for him than _Moira_.

And he was standing right there, in that doorway, shooting but also directing another ginormous… thing—it looked like an omnic, but inside was a human operator, so Widowmaker wasn’t quite sure what it was—to go through some of the big crates. He wasn’t very focused on the fight, and he wasn’t exactly protected by anyone, so she should be able to talk to him without too many interruptions.

She hesitated for a moment, not quite sure if she should… _intervene_. At least in this way.

She had already asked Sombra to make that alert. She had an address. All she needed to do was give it to someone who could force Reaper to respond.

It was strange, feeling something other than apathy or bloodlust. Quite interesting, actually.

She swung down, alighting behind a stack of wooden crates, in the shadows by the doorway. He was growling orders, voice hoarse and rough, and she debated on how to grab his attention.

Well. The only really thing she had was her boresighter.

Only bad snipers used a laser boresighter—a skilled sniper didn’t need to alert their target with one. The rifle should already be sighed and aligned properly. Still, the rifle was one given to her, and most rifles came with that laser sighter. So she had it, even if she didn’t use it.

But it was a light, and it would catch _other_ people’s attention.

So she let the light flickered on, and let the light trail over the omnic/human thing moving crates onto a truck. The girl in the machine didn’t notice—

Soldier: 76 noticed.

He whipped around, his pulse rifle jerking up, and she smiled serenely and waved.

It apparently startled him enough that it kept him from firing. Either that, or he didn’t want to risk her squeezing her shot off into the girl’s forehead.

“What do you want, Widowmaker?” he snarled.

What _did_ she want? It was such a strange question. But for right now, she fingered the piece of paper (where had Sombra found _paper_?) and said quietly, “You’re looking for someone, aren’t you?”

He froze, staring at her.

“Hey, _hal-abeoji_ , where does this one go?”

His head jerked back to the girl, who still wasn’t looking in their direction. “If it’s not computer pieces or weapons, we don’t need it,” he snarled. “I’m checking something out.”

He stepped closer to Widowmaker, into the darker area of the warehouse behind the pillars. “What do you know about that man? Where is he? He should be here, but he’s not.”

Widowmaker hummed to herself. “He isn’t here because he’s… indisposed. But you’re looking for him. You’ve been searching for him. And he needs to be removed from Talon.”

With that visor, it was hard to tell, but he certainly looked like he was shocked by her words. Definitely he didn’t respond at all, just stared at her blankly.

“You need to take him away from here.” She pulled out the slip of paper, and let it flutter to the ground. “Contact him. Get him away. He needs help, even if he won’t realize it.”

He glanced down at the ground, and then lifted his face to hers. That blank mask gave nothing away, but his shoulders were tense, squared as if he was ready to rush her. “Why do you care? How do I know this isn’t a trap? You have no reason to do this.”

She shrugged negligently. “Believe me, or not. But he needs help, and no one here can help him. You want him. For what reason, I don’t know. Certainly a more positive reason than why others here might try to help him.” Widowmaker tilted her head, feeling the weight of her hair pull to one side as she blinked lazily at the soldier. “Besides, I’m not _giving_ you him. I’m merely… opening the lines of communication.”

“ _Hal-abeoji_! Where are you, _noin_?”

He twisted his head to look back at the girl, and she would get no better opportunity than that. Shooting her grapple up, she shot off into the rafters, swinging herself away. There was a small jet parked on the top of the warehouse, one that was waiting for her after she finished “overseeing” the packing up of the resources here—it was simple enough to slip through the upper rafters to the hoverjet.

She gave the soldier a way of contact Reaper, a way that Reaper couldn’t just ignore like he ignored most memos and emails sent out to the top Talon members. She had tried. Hopefully, something good would come out of this. Reaper needed help, this man wanted to… well, hopefully not kill him, which would be a step up from Moira and a half a step up from Ogundimu. She might not like him leaving, since he was the only person she really trusted, but he needed something, and Talon wasn’t giving him anything.

She didn’t have a lot of faith, anymore. But even still… she had some small glimmer of hope. Reaper had someone looking for him.

That had to be positive, right?

It wasn’t as if anyone was looking for her, or for Sombra, after all.


	6. An Epistolary Connection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you can tell i'm handwaving how emails/electronic communication would be sent back and forth in the future. I'm pretending it's like a phone number, where you log into your communicator/tablet/electronic item and you immediately have a thumbprint (ISP) and when you send messages you're sending it directly to someone's ISP (phone number) [yes i know isp means internet service provider but i'm handwaving electronic shit] and so it comes with a date stamp.
> 
> this is a roundabout way to say i picked random dates to show they communicated over the period of like a month and a half and when i went to go check my calendar days against the dates i picked everything lined up exactly, which made me laugh a little.

~~_Dear_ ~~

~~_To whom_ ~~

~~_Gab_ ~~

~~_Reap_ ~~

~~_Why did you do_ ~~

~~_What are you doi_ ~~

~~_We need to talk._ ~~

~~_We need to see ea_ ~~

~~_We need to talk. I don’t believe_ ~~

~~_We need to talk. I don’t know why you made the choices that you did. The bombing might not have been your fault, but everything else_ ~~

~~_We need to talk. I don’t know why you made the choices that you did. We built that organization together_ ~~

~~_We need to talk._ ~~

~~_We need_ ~~

~~_I need to see you._ ~~

_I need to see you. Please._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP17.08.77

* * *

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP20.08.77** // _Who is this? I don’t recognize this thumbprint. Is this message meant for me?_

_I think you know who this is._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP20.08.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP23.08.77** // _If I knew who this was, I wouldn’t be asking, fucker._

_Well, that hasn’t changed from before, city boy._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP23.08.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP24.08.77** // _SOMBRA I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU_

_This isn’t Sombra. You know exactly who this is._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP24.08.77

_So now you’re going to ignore me?_

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP26.08.77

_You never used to ignore me before. You always shouted at me even when all I wanted was for you to go the fuck away._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP30.08.77

_I never wanted you to go away._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP02.09.77

_Man, you should see Fareeha now. She’s somehow more militant than Ana was at her age. Don’t know how that happened._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP06.09.77

_I don’t understand what happened between us._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP07.09.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP08.09.77** // _You know EXACTLY what happened cabron_

_I know I should. If the biggest thing I’ve learned over these five or six years, it’s that I missed a lot of things. But still. I missed it. I didn’t see it, I didn’t understand it. I want to._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP09.09.77

_I know I missed something with you. I wish I hadn’t. I thought—I thought we were closer, after Jennah, after Vincent. I thought… we had something. But all we did was scream at each other._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP10.09.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP10.09.77** // _You NEVER LISTENED! PENDEJO, you never LISTENED TO ME. All I wanted was for you to LISTEN._

_I’m trying to listen now, Gabriel._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP10.09.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP10.09.77** // _It’s too fucking late puta._

_You say that, Gabe, but if you really didn’t want to explain your side, you wouldn’t be writing me back._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP11.09.77

_Now you’re pissy about me pointing that out._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP12.09.77

_Come on, Gabriel._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP13.09.77

_You have to admit, you wouldn’t have responded to me if you didn’t want to explain yourself._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP14.09.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP14.09.77 _//_** _I have to explain MYSELF? What about you? You just accepted what everyone said about me! You just abandoned me! You never trusted me, you didn’t listen, you couldn’t spare me any doubt, and you just—you never tried to see it from my side! And you think I need to explain MYSELF?_

_You’re right, that wasn’t fair of me to say. But I didn’t understand where you were coming from. You never seemed to listen to me. You didn’t give me anything to go on. How can I trust someone who tells me I shouldn’t ask questions?_

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP15.09.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP15.09.77** // _You could trust me with your life in the war but not that I was making good choices?!_

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP16.09.77** // _Now who’s scared to respond, cabron?!_

_You’re right, again. I should have trusted you. But you never told me anything! You never came to me, you never explained your side!_

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP16.09.77

**ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP17.09.77** // _You don’t get to say that, not when you were never around and I couldn’t ever see you! Do you know how many times I—it doesn’t matter! None of this matters!_

_It always mattered. You mattered to me, Gabe. You were… I’d like to think we were partners. That we were more than, than just fuckbuddies. That we had something. I know I did._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP17.09.77

_I think I was in love with you._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP18.09.77

_I think I’m still in love with you._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP20.09.77

_I know that’s unfair to say. I know I shouldn’t say that. We should really talk, face to face._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP22.09.77

_You may not have felt the same. I know I let you down. I’d like to fix this, to talk to you, to get this settled. I want to hear your side of the story._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP22.09.77

_Do you remember where you took me? After the crisis, after that last battle, the really bad one. You looked at me and you forced a four-day break. Everyone didn’t want—I didn’t want to leave. I had just been promoted—over you, and I know that hurt you, and if I could have given you the position I would have—but you came to me and you said you had cleared my schedule, and you took me to LAM. Your family all thought we were together and—and Vincent had just left me. You and Jennah had been broken up for almost seven months then. And we just… that was the first time, but it meant something to me. Being at that cookout, surrounded by your nieces and nephews, seeing them climb over you and you looked so happy… I think we should clear our schedules again._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP26.09.77

_I’ll be there, at that park, in three days. On that swingset, you know, where you shoved me off so little Adrianna could stomp on my kidneys. I really hope that we’ll… that I’ll get to see you, and speak with you. I’ll wait there, for two days. I really hope to see you._

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP30.09.77

* * *

Jack leaned away from his tablet, looking up at the ceiling of his small room Overwatch had given him, and tried to calm his frantic heartbeat. The last time they had been around one another, they had screamed and shouted, accusing each other of destroying Overwatch—and then the bomb had gone off, and they’d thought the other dead.

…Well, Jack had thought Gabriel dead. Maybe Gabriel had always known Jack was alive. That thought hurt, a little—that Gabriel could have known Jack was alive, and did nothing to try and bring them together.

But if there was one thing Jack had learned from searching for Reaper, for Gabriel, all these months, these _years_ , along with Ana’s dry observations and McCree’s sarcastic comments, it was that he wasn’t very good at hearing Gabriel when he spoke, and Gabriel had a hard time hearing Jack in turn.

He hoped, by going back to that idyllic area, where they had taken a vacation and really connected somehow, against all odds, that it would help them connect again. They had had a few vacations since that one, but they had always been haphazard, half-focused things, more like a day or two to simply fuck without anyone interrupting them. They’d never really gone on a date, or celebrated an anniversary—

_(“What is this?”_

_Voice defensive, a short reply, “What’s it look like, idiota?”_

_“Looks like a cake. Like… a lemon cake.”_

_“Good things your eyes still work, mi corazon.”_

_“You hate lemon flavored things. You wouldn’t even touch the lemon cake Wil made by hand. You pretended to eat it when really you just ate the whipped topping and left the rest of it for me.”_

_“So? You like lemon, don’t you?”)_

—or, maybe, Jack was just not used to picking up what Gabriel’s language and words were. Maybe Gabriel had been trying all along…

…Or maybe Jack was reading into things, like he always did with everyone else, like he had with Vincent and with Bret before him and with Robert before that. Jack couldn’t trust himself. But he could do this, and square up to face what Gabriel had to say.

It might be his only chance.


	7. (Re)Connection and Communication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, as you can tell, i've missed my self imposed deadline x.x;; i'm working on it, but honestly part of the problem was these two dummies wouldn't stop talking to each other instead of just smooshing booties

Los Angeles Metropolis was a towering monument both to climate change’s inexorable effects on the world as well as humanity’s—well, Californians, who were a special breed of crazy all on their own—ability to say a giant ‘fuck you’ to anything trying to grind them down. The towering spires glittered gold in the sun’s dying rays, and the small park Jack was sitting at was one of the many “floating greens” that California had become known for as they shot up into the sky and needed to bring clean air and space for children to grow and play along with them.

The park was one he was familiar with, if in a vague sense. He’d been here, years ago… almost ten, if he thought about it. No, more—after Vincent had broke up with him, and when his heart had been so bruised from that last, decisive battle that had ended the war and thousands of innocent lives, Gabriel had somehow finagled both their schedules and brought him here, to Gabriel’s home city. It had still been rebuilding from the Omnic Wars, still was dicey late at night, but during the day, there was community and family, and even though they had only managed to snatch four days away from their jobs (one of which really didn’t count, since half of their first day was spent in an airplane and half of their last day had been Gabriel vid-conferencing with Ana)—even though they had only had four short days, Jack had relaxed, unwound, and managed to find some peace. Vincent leaving had hurt, deeply, even though realistically Jack knew it had been coming—but being here, surrounded by Gabriel’s family and cousins and nieces and nephews, pushing children on the swings and holding back in bowling to let the little ones beat him…

This place had good memories, for him. It was why he had suggested it, after all. And when he had fallen into Gabriel, and Gabriel had opened his arms and caught him, well…

This place had been magical. An oasis of comfort, and love, and security. He wanted to return to that, and offer it to Gabriel.

He wanted to meet Gabriel in a place where Gabriel was comfortable, and show that he was putting an effort in and trying.

But he’d been here now, sitting on the bench with his holotab in his lap, for almost eight hours now. Oh, he couldn’t sit for eight hours in one place, not without looking like a creep—he’d gone and sat in the café at lunch time across the sidewalk, eaten and drank, and then walked the length of the park ten times, jogging a little and then walking, doing his best to look like a healthy human instead of a superhuman who could have gone as fast or faster than a car in many situations. _Then_ he wandered into a small bistro a level up, looking down at the park from the patio seating.

It looked like Reaper wasn’t coming.

* * *

He’d given Reaper a two-day window, and he was sticking by it, though he was disheartened by yesterday’s lack of progress. Yesterday had been a Sunday, and the park had been full of children, young and old. Adults had thronged through the street, and zipcrafts had hovered by like dragonflies, transporting people of all ages across the park to the various businesses surrounding the greenery.

Today was a Monday, and it was clear in the lack of people around. Not that there weren’t pedestrians—this was LAM, after all, and there was a huge amount of people who regularly worked different hours, or were caregivers of young children, or who had children who went to charter or half-day schools, or were homeschooled. There were many different people out, but Jack no longer felt like a creep if he found a bench that would keep him shaded from the over-exuberant sun that burned his over-sensitive skin.

_(“Like las langosta. Cherry red and cherry cheeked. Thought you put on sunscreen?”_

_“I did, I did.”_

_“Thought you were a cornbread farmboy.”_

_“I was.”_

_Cackling, even though the fingertips rubbing aloe and nanite solution on his shoulders and back were so, so gentle. “Now you’re really mi sol, aren’t you?”_

_Embarrassment, thick and heavy in his gut. “Stop it. If you’re just going to make fun of me, you can leave. I’m sure you’re behind on your duties.”_

_“Like you, Jackie. We were just on a weekend trip to the Caribbean.”_

_“Well, then go do your work and leave me alone.”_

_“…If you’re sure.”)_

Jack groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. He was not the best with his feelings. He _wasn’t_. It wasn’t a good excuse, but now, having Ana’s voice about how they talked past each other, remembering McCree’s words about Gabriel’s motives…

He needed words. His father and mother had not been demonstrative people, and he’d never believed they loved him even though he was the eldest, the one that followed all the rules and did everything they wanted. His happiest moment he could remember from his childhood was when he’d successfully managed to ride their most difficult stallion, gentling him and coaxing the magnificent beast into a proud trot, and he’d looked up to see his father standing by the fence. His father had said four words—“You did good, son,”—and then walked away, but those four words had been more precious than gold.

He spoke, he explained, he was very bad at reading social cues. He knew all this.

Gabriel… was different.

Gabriel had been a big people person, really good at reading a room and strategizing. He was almost preternatural in his ability to guess exactly where the omnics would strike during the crisis, as well as his ability to guess what the human reaction would be and where the survivors would be concentrated—and where they would only find bodies stacked like firewood.

Gabriel had a soft heart, a kindness he hid with sharp gestures and sharper words.

Jack had once known that, had seen how Gabriel and Jennah’s relationship was on the rocks because of how badly Gabriel was at focusing on others around him, had seen how the crisis had ground Gabriel down to almost nothing. As Overwatch and Blackwatch grew more and more divergent, as Jack realized that his cells weren’t breaking down properly and he might live decades longer than most humans would, as Gabriel realized that his cells were decaying rapidly and was trying to find a solution that would keep him out of constant pain, as the UN became more and more demanding, expecting perfect results every time and deriding Jack for any mistake or SNAFU, as the international community became aware of Overwatch’s black ops sector and became furious over the necessity of it…

He’d forgotten, that at the beginning of it, at the very core of it, it had always been him and Gabriel, them against the world. He’d forgotten this small corner, this small peace, that had been ripped from them over and over again. He’d forgotten the things that made them the same, the roots.

He’d hoped his messages to Reaper, to _Gabriel_ , had been enough to bring about this meeting. To have them meet, and discuss, and speak about what had happened between them.

He looked around at the greying sky. It was almost sunset anyways, but the storm that had been threatening for most of the day had finally broken and a light drizzle was starting to sprinkle down. His signature jacket, the one associated with his vigilante days, was folded up in the small rucksack he’d brought with him—he had tried to blend in with the civilians by pulling out a more mobile visor that revealed the scars on his face, changed his clothes so he was in black sweatpants and a grey t-shirt, left his extra knives and biotics in the motel room he was renting. His mobile visor looked like sunglasses, almost, if one didn’t notice they literally plugged in the port behind the shell of his right ear.

Now, with all the rain starting to make his shirt stick to his skin, his white hair pressed to his scalp in an unpleasant, cold way, he glanced up at the dark clouds and the empty streets, most families home now and eating dinner, the few people he could see all inside and eating in the warmth and out of the wet, and he cursed himself for thinking… for _reading_ too much into everything. He had never been able to talk to Gabriel, not really, and this was just proof.

He stood up, figuring that since he would be leaving soon (tonight) he might as well be warm, and unrolled his jacket to sling the signature leather over his shoulders and catch some of his body heat, keeping him warm. When he turned around to walk across the sidewalk and catch a hovBus down to his motel, he saw a glint of white in one of the narrow gaps between the sky-high buildings.

His breath caught in his throat.

Glancing around at the deserted area, he stomped his dripping way over to where a figure, cloaked in black, masked in white, hands curved into talons, stood silently in the dark alleyway. There were a million things running through his mind, words to say, questions to demand answers to, accusations to throw—

“How long have you been standing there, you fucker?” he growled. “I could’ve been in a warm room instead of in this piss-poor weather.”

Reaper folded his arms, talons clicking against his body armor. “Long enough to know the piss-poor weather just started, the only danger you ever were in was burning in the sun, and you know it. You’re just mad you weren’t able to make me until I showed myself.”

The casual words, the almost dismissive shrug of his shoulders, the drawled tone that said ‘I’m better than you and I _know_ it’—Jack snarled, hands going to grab at Reaper’s shirt and shove him against the wall.

Gently, though. Carefully. His hands were trembling, after all, and he was feeling so many different emotions he didn’t know what to say, what to do.

“ _Cabron,_ you just here to kill me?” Reaper asked, voice as rough as Jack’s own—but it was also resigned, like he expected it, like he thought nothing else was going to happen, and suddenly Jack found his eyesight blurred even with the visor, hot liquid joining the cold drops that streaked his cheeks.

“No,” he said, voice choked and broken as he fought to say the words. “No, I don’t want to kill you. I’ve missed you, so goddamned long. I’ve fucking missed you, Gabriel.”

He was shaking, now, not just trembling, using his grip on Gabriel’s coat or cloak or whatever the hell it was to keep him up instead of to hold Gabriel still, and Gabriel paused, those thick, killing globes so gentle as they reached up, cradled the back of Jack’s head, took off Jack’s visor delicately.

“Jackie,” he breathed, and Jack couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t use his eyes, and he didn’t care, he just didn’t want to let go, “Jackie, look at you. You’re so old, you’re so hurt. Who hurt you, _mi corazon, mi cielo_? Was it the bomb? Was it someone else?”

Jack fought to breathe, chest heaving as if he’d just fought a battle, as if he’d run the length of the city and back, shoulders and arms trembling, and then those hands moved again, a click, and when Jack glanced back up, milky eyes desperately trying to see, something, anything, of his beloved again after so long, he could make out a darker blob, but not… not the color he was expecting. Not the white of Gabriel’s mask—the click had been Gabriel removing it, he was sure—and not the rich tone of Gabriel’s skin, and not the black of his cloak. It was… greyish, almost, and Jack pushed himself upright, forced his weak and wobbling legs and knees to cooperate as he thrust himself forward, blindly, until his lips brushed against rough, almost ribbed and rippled skin.

Then Gabriel must have tilted his head, or something, his arm going up and Jack pinned it there, against the wall, still gripping onto Gabriel’s cloak with his other hand, and they were _kissing_.

All his pent-up frustration, his love, his loss, his ache, all of it, he tried to show _all of it_ , tried to keep from crying, tried to hold Gabriel to him as if he could, as if anyone could make Gabriel stay if Gabriel decided to leave—

_CRK-BOOOM_

Jack pulled back at the sudden reverberation in the air, the rolling and rumbling thunder, and the rain suddenly intensified suddenly, sheets of water pouring down from the heavens.

Then his visor was put back into his hand, and he put it on to finally _see_ Gabriel, to see someone he had thought he’d never see again.

The man was… older. Grey in his curls, in his beard. Scars on his face, on his neck. His skin appeared to be… almost pulsating. _Moving_. The scars, they remained the same, but Gabriel’s face was hazy, not as defined.

Well. Not those eyes. Not those deep brown eyes that Jack remembered so vividly. Those were the same.

“I have a room,” Jack said, voice still not completely steady. “If—if you want.”

Gabriel hesitated, mask still in his hand. He looked down at it, and then back up at Jack. “I’m a monster, Jack,” he rumbled, voice vibrating through the air almost menacingly even without the distortion of the mask. “I don’t—you shouldn’t be talking to me. It’s too late for us. It’s too late for… for _this_.”

“I don’t know about you,” Jack said, fiercely, stepping forward into Gabriel’s space, mapping out what details he could through the visor, the sensors, looking and looking and drinking his fill of the face he had thought was gone forever, “but I have a second chance and I am sure as hell not letting go unless you pry my hands off.”

Then he paused, and leaned forward, letting his face come close to Gabriel’s—and this close, Jack’s visor could register the crawling of nanites, of wounds opening and closing in small patches over Gabriel’s skin, over his throat, over his cheek—and he breathed, soft and careful. “Unless, Gabriel, you tell me to go, I have you, and I’m not letting go.”

Gabriel’s face twisted painfully, and then he squared his shoulders. “Alright,” he growled. “Let’s figure this out. You said you had a room.”

Heart pounding hopefully, Jack led Gabriel out of the alleyway, into the downpour, and towards warmth.

* * *

The room was a crappy motel room; it was pressed against a major hov-track, with hovBuses and hovTrucks and hovTanks rattling past the window, but it also had windows that opened out to the sprawling interconnections of LAM, of the spires and buildings that shot into the air like giant middle fingers to the rising seas and the omnics that had threatened this bustling metropolis. The motel itself had very small rooms, with very thin walls, but also very few patrons, so when Gabriel stepped into the room and closed the door behind him Jack gave in to the urge that had been almost debilitating these past few blocks and dug his hands into the fabric of Gabriel’s cloak, pulled Gabriel close and breathed in deep.

He smelled the musty smell of rot, of something darker and deadlier, of gun oil and gunpowder, of blood.

Gabriel growled and pushed Jack back. “This is a stupid decision on so many levels. How you always managed to make me throw caution to the wind, I will never know. You can’t do this. _I_ can’t do this.”

“Why not?” Jack asked, demanded, moving out of Gabriel’s space but not letting go of the other man. “Why can’t I? Why can’t _you_? Gabriel, I only recently realized you were alive, and not just alive but you were playing at a game no one knew or understood. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose _you_. We need to talk shit out, I’m not going to argue about that, but you can’t expect me to just… forget you’re here.”

“And why not?!” Gabriel shouted, yanking his mask off and throwing it onto the ground, shrugging his cloak off and letting it drop, throwing his arms wide to show off the black cloud that danced above his clothes, above his skin. “Why the hell not? You could forget it before! You never came looking for me! _You never cared about my side of the story before!_ Why the _hell_ does it matter now?!”

Jack stepped back, staggered, and dropped to sit on the creaking frame of the old-world bed, metal and real wood twisted together and trying to hold up his frame and his sorrow. “You have every right to ask that of me. Ana’s said, over and over, that we never really heard each other. And I have to say, I get that. I understand that. I do. But you never tried to understand where I was coming from, either. You never, never came looking for _me_.”

“I thought you were dead, don’t you dare put that on me!” Gabriel snarled, and if Jack couldn’t see the naked pain on Gabriel’s face, hear the tremble and see the shake in Gabriel’s hands, maybe he would have jumped up too, maybe he would have shouted back like before. Maybe this fight would have gone in the way that so many had gone, and things would have happened that could never be undone, like before.

But he could see it, now. The visor didn’t exactly let him miss those signs of weaknesses, let him look past those, let him catalogue them as anything other than someone hurting and in pain. He was older, now, and he may have forgotten a lot of shit, but Gabriel had never been something he had forgotten. Instead, he realized how close to the edge Gabriel seemed, how thin he was even though the SEP required so much calories, so much intake of protein and food in order to maintain muscle mass.

Instead, he realized the words for what they were, like with Lena, like with Fareeha, like with Wilhelm.

“I thought you were dead, too,” he said heavily. “I thought—I don’t know what happened that day. I went there because I had been handed a dossier on you from that prick in the UN, the one you hated. He told me that you were knowingly aiding and abetting Talon. That you were making it so that shipments fell into their hands, that personnel were fired or transferred into units they never were supposed to be. And I was—I was sick and tired of it, I know that was on me. I know I should have asked you. But I hadn’t thought things through. And that’s on me. That’s always going to be on me.”

Gabriel stared at him, as if unable to really believe that Jack was there, was speaking about this, and _not_ blaming him for it, not throwing about accusations the way the Jack of old would have done.

“You and I argued—I don’t remember what we said, not in the least. I don’t remember who was in the room with us, or if we were alone. Amnesia, the doctors said. They didn’t know who I was; I crawled away from the rubble, apparently, and ended up in an alleyway. They thought I had been mugged, badly. Scars, all on the face, my throat had heavy smoke inhalation damage, my eyes were… destroyed. By the time I could move and could take the visionary input from the optical implants, it had been… months. So long. My ‘body’ was buried, as was yours. The reports all painted you as a villain. And… it was easier to believe that, in the beginning.”

Because Jack had been looking for it, because Jack was looking _so carefully_ , he saw the flinch, the anger and pain and despair cross Gabriel’s face before it became impassive once more.

 _You’d be so proud of me, Ana_ , he thought, licking his lips. “Then, when I went back to try and figure out what happened, what had _exactly_ taken place… I saw you. Or, rather, I saw Reaper. A terrorist we knew about, we believed to be on Talon’s payroll. Someone you yourself said you were hunting down and searching for. Someone I thought was responsible for it all. And… I decided I was going to make Reaper pay.”

“And now?” Gabriel asked, voice so rough it could scratch glass. “Now? Are you going to make Reaper pay?”

Jack spread his hands helplessly. “Maybe I should. I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what happened there. But I know that even if I was supposed to, even if that was the right thing to do, even if I was ordered to… I don’t think I could, anymore.”

“Easy to say,” Gabriel scoffed, but there was surprise on his face, just the touch of incredulity in his words.

Jack shrugged his shoulders restlessly. “Perhaps. But I only told one person about you—well, three people. But Ana knew before me, told _me_ about who Reaper really was. And Winston… Winston knows I’m looking for Reaper.”

“And the last person?” Gabriel asked.

“McCree.”

Gabriel’s face twisted, a heated scowl making his voice echo almost creepily, deep and dangerous. “That damn ingrate?!”

“Hey,” Jack said mildly, though the hair on his arms was standing up at Gabriel’s tone. “That’s your adopted son.”

“He’s no son of mine, that _fool_ ,” Gabriel snarled, nanites dripping off his face to bare more of his teeth than humans normally showed, even when angry.

“Look, McCree deserved to know,” Jack said. “He was the closest to you, and he should know that you’re alive.”

He never had been good at getting bullshit past Gabriel; the other man’s eyes narrowed, and his skin almost seemed to writhe, cuts and wounds opening over his face and neck and hands. “He caught you, didn’t he? He’s a nosy motherfucker.”

“He cares about you,” Jack said softly. “I do, too.”

When there was no answer, Gabriel still standing at the door, arms folded, fury on his face, Jack sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I… I know it’s not fair, to spring this on you. We never really defined what we were. I thought we were… if not partners, at least good friends. I know it seemed like you—that I didn’t trust you, and maybe to an extent that was true, but I wanted to trust you, so badly. I never got anything that I could use when people would spring shit on me like that Rialto bad deal, or the Islamabad mission, or that absolute clusterfuck in Phnom Penh.”

“I _did not have to explain myself to you_!” Gabriel growled, body vibrating and starting to discorporate, turning into that characteristic black cloud Jack was so used to seeing. “I did not have to disclose my methods to you!”

“I _could not defend you if I did not know what was going on_!” Jack snapped back, standing up from the bed. “What was I supposed to do?! You—I—I couldn’t do anything if you— _dammit_ this is fucking harder than just—”

“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked, head tilted—a little too sharply to be human, but Jack could ignore that right now.

“I’m— _fuck_ —Ana told me that when you discuss your emotions you have to use ‘I’ statements and I’m fucking trying, I’m trying so hard, it’s just so _difficult_ to keep that in my mind all the time!”

Gabriel stared blankly at Jack a minute before throwing his head back and laughing that huge belly laugh, the one that was so rare and that was such a treat to see that Jack stopped being angry and just watched Gabriel be _happy_. “You—Ana told you to use ‘I’ statements? What the hell, Jackie?”

“Hey, it’s good advice,” he said, trying to keep his embarrassment from showing in his voice. “I can only speak about myself, after all. I don’t know what you were thinking, so I shouldn’t… project or some shit. Put words on your choices or emotions or whatever.”

“I can almost hear the old bitch in your mouth when you say that,” Gabriel chuckled, and his body settled back down into a humanoid shape. “Fine. Let me—when I woke up from the explosion, I knew it was… bad. I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I remember Ziegler there, Angela, with that new staff she had just made. Then I closed my eyes. And opened them in a Talon laboratory.”

Jack stifled the urge to step forward, to offer comfort. Instead, he gestured to the bed as he sat back down, inviting Gabriel to sit down.

For almost a full minute, Gabriel stared at the bed next to Jack, clawed fingertips tapping anxiously against his arm, and then he stripped out of his body armor. Clad in nothing but a black, formfitting long-sleeved shirt and black combat pants and boots, he tentatively moved to sit next to Jack, keeping a deliberate gap between himself and Jack.

It took everything within himself for Jack not to close the gap, to respect the boundary and make Gabriel feel as comfortable as he could be.

Once he was sitting, Gabriel’s fingers—black-tipped and still vaguely clawed, the nanites revealing bits and pieces of bone in his knuckles—tapped against his knees. “You know—you know that Reaper, as a persona, has been around longer than Overwatch.”

Jack swallowed. Gabriel was going _all_ the way back, apparently. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I—I was aware.”

“Yeah, well… you know with you, you’re soldier 76 because that was your damn—your fucking number in the SEP. You remember my number?”

Jack frowned in concentration. “In the twenties, wasn’t it?”

“Twenty-four. They were in the iteration where they thought nanites would bind the experimental shit into our genes. So for you, you know, you eat like, constantly, like a damn locust? Well, the nanites need to eat, too.”

“You said. And we can find you like, cows or some shit. Goats. Organic material can be like, plants too, I would think.”

“Stop, just—just _stop_! It’s not—you can’t just—you can’t just ignore what happened to me!” Gabriel snarled, skin starting to smoke again.

Taking a risk, Jack put his hand on Gabriel’s knee. “I can, and I will,” he said lowly, urgently, trying to impress just how much he _didn’t care_ about what had happened to Gabriel, just that he had Gabriel back. “I said it, in our messages, and I’ll say it again—I _love_ you, Gabriel. I have this second chance, and I’m holding on to it, I’m not letting this go, not unless you tell me you don’t feel the same.”

“You—I’ve been Reaper! The whole time, before Overwatch, now, during Overwatch, always! I have been—”

“A double agent,” Jack cut in smoothly, putting his life in his hands by reaching out and tentatively linking his fingers with Gabriel. “You have only ever tried to make the world a better place. And I’m sorry—I’m sorry I ever forgot that.”

Gabriel stared at him a long moment, then surged forward, lips crashing against Jack’s almost violently as he shoved Jack down against the bed, claw-tipped fingers pricking against Jack’s wrists as he leaned over on top of Jack, kissing him almost desperately.

Jack wasn’t an idiot—he knew sex wouldn’t solve their problems, or fix what had gone wrong. But it sure as hell was a good way to reconnect, to rebuild, to—

Hell, it was Gabriel, kissing him. Older, maybe, different, but still. _Gabriel_. Jack wasn’t thinking with anything other than, well.

You know.

He fought to wiggle out of his leather jacket, which was wet and clinging, and thankfully Gabriel was extremely enthusiastic about that idea, helping him out of his jacket, sliding a hand up underneath Jack’s still-damp t-shirt.

Jack moaned, eyes fluttering shut behind his visor as his hands gripped on Gabriel’s shoulders. Against Jack’s throat, Gabriel purred, a deep, dangerous sound that had Jack’s cock rock-hard almost instantly.

“There’s my Jackie, there’s _mi amor_ ,” Gabriel growled, shoving Jack’s pants and briefs down to bare his cock to the suddenly-overheated air of the room.

“ _Gabe_ ,” Jack groaned, hips rocking, and the shock of Gabriel’s dick against him had his eyes blinking open, looking down to see that Gabriel had very literally just shoved both their pants down and slotting their knees together, letting them rut together like teenagers.

Then again, Jack didn’t exactly have supplies. He didn’t want to stop now and go looking for them. This was perfectly fine.

…Maybe not perfect, but it would work, for them.

Gabriel’s mouth moved over Jack’s neck and shoulders, migrating back to kiss his deeply and then traveling away again as they pumped their hips against each other inelegantly. It was a little rough, a little painful—no lube, after all, to make it slippery between them beyond what precum was doing—but it was _Gabriel_. Jack slid a hand between them, gripping at both their shafts, smearing what he could and squeezing delicately, finding those sensitive spots he barely remembered.

With a deep, basso groan, Gabriel grunted and spilled over their bellies, the rush of heat and extra slick making it easy for Jack’s hips to stutter and then freeze as he came moments after Gabriel.

They lay there, Gabriel on top of Jack, body shifting and tingling and making it feel as if Gabe’s entire body was rubbing and stroking Jack’s.

They were going to be sticky. Jack grunted, and pushed a little at Gabriel’s shoulder. “Gotta get—”

“I know, _mi corazon_ ,” Gabe groaned, and he pushed himself up, grimacing. With a shake of his shoulders and a frown of concentration, Gabe’s clothes disappeared and flaked away into black smoke, leaving him naked.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the scarred, wounded, black-tinged skin revealed. Almost embarrassed, Gabriel looked away. “More—more freakishness.”

“Honestly, I was just thinking that was really handy,” Jack said, voice slurred and heavy with sleep.

At that, Gabe started to open his mouth—and then he closed it, shook his head. He walked into the tiny bathroom to scrounge up one of those small, scratchy hand towels and swabbed at the mess on Jack’s chest, then helped Jack completely out of all his clothes.

Jack hummed appreciatively and dragged himself sluggishly around until he could pull the blankets down and slip into the bed, slipping the visor off and effectively blinding himself. “C’mon, Gabe,” he mumbled, patting the bed next to him. “Get in here.”

There was no noise, and Jack was terrified for one second that all Gabriel wanted was a fuck, that Gabriel was going to leave.

Then the bed dipped next to Jack, and Gabriel laid his head on Jack’s chest.

Jack never felt so warm.

* * *

Jack was almost asleep when Gabriel’s voice came from the vicinity of his chest, rough and low. “I’m literally a vampire. I can’t—you can’t take that away from me.”

“Mmm. M’not trying to. I’m just—I’m an old man who can’t eat too much roughage. Ana teases me about my creaking joints. I have trouble having regular shits.”

There was a pause, and then Gabriel’s fist hit him—lightly, but firmly—against his head. “ _Idiota,_ those are nowhere near equal. I _eat_ people.”

“Bad people, I’m sure,” Jack murmured, voice drowsy as the rain pounded the window, creating a soothing staccato beat that was almost lulling him to sleep. Then he blinked open his sightless eyes to frown at the dark blob curled on his chest. “Wait, do you, like, chew up body parts in your mouth?”

“What? Gross, you sicko,” Gabriel grumbled, poking him again and then letting his head fall heavy against Jack’s chest. “No, I… my nanites need organic material to remake the bullets, the guns, the… everything. When I get hurt. I mostly float over others and just… suck organic material out of their veins. Blood’s the easiest to utilize, because it’s liquid.”

Jack hummed again, letting his fingers card in the short curls at the base of Gabriel’s neck. “So you said any organic material will do? We could just buy a herd of goats. Or cows. Goats are cute, even if they’re fuckers.”

“Cows are cute, too. I don’t—I never tried to use animals—it doesn’t matter! I can’t—I can’t go back to Overwatch, Jack.”

Jack chuckled a little, pressing a kiss to the top of Gabriel’s head. “I thought that too, Gabe. But… it was surprisingly easy. Lena and Fareeha were upset, and poor Wilhelm was really broken up about it, but… it was easy.”

“ _Cabron_ , I’m not saying—no, it won’t be easy, not for me. But even so, you moron, I’m in Talon for a reason.”

Jack gnawed on his lip. Now that he had a natural, easy way to ask, to get the answers he had craved for so long… he knew that once he asked the question, he wouldn’t be able to go back. He’d lose this intimacy, this closeness, this… domesticity, the domesticity he’d wanted his whole life.

_Stop being a coward, Jack._

Swallowing hard, he asked roughly, “Why… what happened, Gabriel? What did I… what did I not hear, or what did I miss?”

For a long moment—almost four heartbeats, counted out—Gabriel said nothing, and then he let out a long sigh and pushed away from Jack, sitting up and letting the covers pool down against his and Jack’s waists. Even though he was sitting right next to him, it was still too much of a distance for Jack to make anything out except blobs of color, and he groped blindly for his optical visor, the mobile one, so he could see Gabriel again.

“I feel—I feel like I tried, I tried to tell you what I could. But I couldn’t tell you everything, Jack. You…”

Gabriel trailed off, and he laughed, voice wet and rough and almost monstrous in its echo and painful in its sorrow. “Now you have me thinking about trying to use those damned ‘I’ statements. You gotta tell Ana we tried, you owe me that.”

“We could both do it,” Jack whispered, the optical visor kicking in as he snapped it into its port. “We could.”

“I _can’t_. I need proof that Talon was behind the shit in Overwatch, I need proof that Talon has designs for destabilizing governments, and I can’t—I need to find that mole. That first person that brought Overwatch down. I don’t know who it was—by the time I figured out Talon was in, there were too many leaks, too many unexplained missions, too many dark spots and shady deals. And—and no one is going to welcome into Overwatch, be realistic, Jackie. No one wants me to come back.”

“I do,” Jack murmured. “McCree does. Hell, Ana wants you back, too. You know Genji would be—you’d be so proud to see him, Gabe. He’s so calm, so in control, you’d never recognize him.” Then he paused, and huffed out a breath. “He’s a little shit, too.”

Gabriel laughed tiredly. “I want to, Jack. But I can’t. Not yet. You can’t ask me to give up now.”

Jack swallowed hard. “But—we can still talk, can’t we? Communicate?”

Gabriel’s mouth twisted up sadly. “We can. But, Jackie, _mi cielo…_ It’s not fair to do this to you. You need to connect with your team, and I need to take care of my work there.”

He paused, and then some of that dangerous, dark growl snuck into his words. “And, let me be completely clear, using I statements and everything—it _hurt_. It hurt to know that _no one_ defended me, my name, my personality, in Overwatch. No one tried to say that it was out of character for me to _blow up a building_ with people _still in it._ ”

That—that, Jack could see. He could understand… that.

“When you ask what you missed… I couldn’t tell you anything. I _couldn’t_. If you knew, you could be held accountable for it and they could strip your rank from you—”

“That was my choice to make, though,” Jack said quietly. “I get—I get that this seems like you were trying to protect me, but that was a choice you took from me.”

Gabriel turned to look at him, eyes serious. “Maybe so,” he said slowly. “Maybe you’re right. But—I thought it was for the best. You already got so torn up over every time they dragged you through the coals for mistakes that weren’t even our fault, _your_ fault. We couldn’t ever find time to just take off and have a vacation. It was a way to… give you a break, I thought.”

Then he shook his head and looked back down. “I thought I was helping. I thought I was being clear on that. But every time I came to you, you just—we just fought. We shouted, and I couldn’t handle that so I left, and my messages weren’t going through to your office, getting to your desk, and everyone kept telling me you were too busy…”

He sighed, and shook his head. “I don’t know where we went wrong. I just know—I just know you should have _known_ me. You should have known that that was _not_ me.”

Jack leaned his forehead against Gabriel’s shoulder, and he said roughly, “I can’t apologize enough. All I can do is wait for you now.”

Gabriel patted Jack’s cheek. “You shouldn’t be waiting for me.”

“I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it, Gabe—I have a second chance with you. I’ve been searching for you, and I’ve found you. I’m not letting you go unless you tell me you want me to let go.”

The silence that met his words made Jack’s heart sing.


	8. Our Children Have No Patience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last one i'm positng for tonight, it's like 1:30a and i'm scared i'm missing mistakes. i should be able to post everything tomorrow tho! i'm so sorry for the wait!

“You said you’d be searchin’ ‘im down. You’d bring him back, an’ you’d get answers.”

Jack lifted his head up, lips leaving the rim of the coffee cup he had just been about to sip from. “McCree,” he said gravely, trying to look like he was being serious when he’d just been reviewing some… messages he’d been sending back and forth with Gabe over this past month.

One of these days, he’d be surprised without his visor and everyone would be able to see his cheeks blush. Gabriel always made fun of him for how his emotions spread over his face like bruises, clear and bright for anyone to see.

Fingers snapped in his face, and he refocused his attention on McCree, who looked a strange cross between angry and trying not to show his anger.

“You have a job, Morrison,” McCree hissed. “You were supposed to be findin’ Gabriel! Not sittin’ ‘ere, playing video games with Hana and drinkin’—drinkin’ coffee!”

It was interesting, his voice—angry, a clear threat in the words that were spoken under his breath, but still soft enough not to bother the two other people in the kitchen mess. Not that they were paying attention; Genji only had eyes for his master, and Zenyatta was quietly speaking on some thing or the other, hands moving fluidly and his orbs chiming ever so gently.

McCree didn’t want anyone to know about Reaper, either—Reaper, or Gabriel Reyes, was a modern-day war criminal, someone who was openly taught about in history books as being the person that had ended an international peacekeeping organization. The old guard here had mixed feelings about Reaper, most negative (they had worked with him in small doses, and all except Willhelm and Torbjorn were unused to his very… abrasive personality), and the new agents had nothing except the history books to go on.

So, overall, this operation to capture Reaper and figure out why what had happened had happened was kept very private. It was why Jack had only told Ana and McCree—and McCree agreed, which meant that he was here practically whispering his angry inquiry to Jack.

And it wasn’t like Jack could tell McCree that he had been up until almost four in the morning, talking with Gabriel on their secure line that wasn’t supposed to exist. Especially when very literally the last hour of their talk had been them arguing on the necessity of adding jalapenos to salsa at all, with Gabriel vehemently insisting that salsa was not salsa if it did not have jalapenos, and Jack pointing out that some people were allergic to the vegetable and just because it only had tomatoes and onions and spices didn’t automatically disqualify it from—

“ _Morrison_ ,” McCree snarled.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. You yourself have been looking for him, with Athena. He’s been pulling back from Talon’s overt operations. I have my source looking for him.” Not so much, anymore, but in general. “I don’t know what more you want from me.”

McCree sat heavily, shoulders rounded as he leaned forward across the table. “Now I get why yer here, an’ why yer with Overwatch right now, but you abandoned this before an’ I don’t think yer here ‘cause of yer sudden belief in Overwatch again. You have new info, an’ you ain’t sharin’ it.”

Sometimes, Jack fell for it—for McCree’s act of being a stupid cowboy, a dumb gun-for-hire that only cared about money and drinking. Other times, he was reminded sharply just what Gabriel had seen in McCree, and that McCree had been second in command of Blackwatch—in fact, ran and organized Blackwatch when Gabriel was indisposed or out and unable to fulfill his duties.

“I do,” he said, finally. “I’m sorry. I’m not about to share it. But I’m… in contact with him.”

McCree looked at him closely, eyes narrowed, hat low over his eyes—even at this ridiculous hour, which meant that either he’d been up for a while (likely; none of them had steady or rational sleeping patterns) or that he’d just come back from a mission (less likely; he normally went on missions with the elder Shimada [that had apparently shown up during the five months Jack had been searching around the globe for Gabriel] and the other man had been here for dinner last night)—and something like fond disgust crept over his face. “Hell. You’re sexting or somethin’, ain’cha?”

Jack’s head jerked back, coffee sloshing over the top of his mug, and he said in an unnaturally high voice, “What the _hell_ , McCree?!”

“You’re sendin’ each other lovey-dovey messages through some manner. Yer up, when it’s like 6 in th’ mornin’—”

“I was in the army, son, I wake up early every day—”

“—yer drinkin’ coffee so y’ clearly didn’t sleep a lot at night, because y’normally don’t drink the swill here, y’drink tea or some shitty protein shake—”

“I—I just felt like coffee today, dammit—”

“—an’ I’m pretty sure that, even through that visor, I can see th’ bags under yer eyes. An’ yer chipper, because y’haven’t told me to fuck off yet. Y’haven’t been pissy with me once this whole time.”

How many times was he going to be thankful his visor hid all his expressions?

“Well, have y’ gotten any answers about what th’ hell happened? D’ya know anythin’? D’ya know why he just let things go like he did?”

…And sometimes, he was reminded that McCree, for all his competence and strength, his ability and fierceness, had seen Gabriel as a father, as an older brother, as a mentor.

As a friend.

“I think… I think I oughta let him explain. We’re trying, McCree, I swear it,” he added quickly, when McCree’s eyes flashed angrily and it looked like he was going to cut in. “He’s… undercover, pretty much. He’s trying to figure out how many of our former agents are hiding in Talon’s ranks, trying to find out how deep it goes, and trying to find hard proof about Talon’s true intentions that would stand up internationally. He’s going to do his best to get out as soon as he can, and we’re talking. We are.”

McCree drummed the fingers of his prosthetic on the table, eyes distant. It looked like he wanted to argue, to still berate Jack, but then the door slid open and the elder Shimada stepped inside, eyes scanning the room in a paranoid manner of which Jack heartily approved.

“Good morning, McCree,” the man murmured, resting his hand on McCree’s shoulder blade and tapping his fingertips against the curve of McCree’s shoulder. “Have you eaten?”

McCree jabbed a finger in Jack’s face. “I ain’t forgettin’ this. He needs ta be _here_ , an’ y’need ta convince him. Not that y’ever were good at convincin’ ‘im on anythin’, but ya gotta _try_.”

Jack nodded gravely.

With that, McCree stood up, turning towards the dark-haired man—Hanso? Hanzo? Hando?—something along those lines. The man gave Jack a cool look, almost evaluating, but Jack had long given up caring what others thought of him, or how others perceived him. Instead, he let his impassive visor point at the two of them even as his eyes drifted over to Genji and Zenyatta, the former pretending studiously not to notice them, the latter probably hearing everything even though he looked like he hadn’t heard a thing. Winston knew—or had guessed—about Reaper. Genji knew something was up between him and McCree, and wasn’t an idiot either; he’d soon guess the only connection the two of them had. And McCree and that archer were an item, which meant that the archer probably knew, too.

Too many people knowing that Reaper was not on Talon’s side was dangerous, and he’d have to let Gabriel know. While subtly implying that Gabriel ought to contact McCree, at least, and do his best to say that McCree wanted to talk to Gabriel when it looked more like that McCree just wanted to yell at Gabriel.

* * *

Later that night, he opened up his holotab and keyed in his identification code, settling into his bed. The watchpoint had, at one point, been able to house fifteen-hundred soldiers and fifty officers. Now, it barely held twenty-five people, which meant everyone had co-opted an officer quarter’s room for themselves and had outfitted them to their liking.

Ana’s, for example, was full of decorative tea cups and lace doilies, plush pillows, and soft things. Genji had made his room some weird mixture of busy and highly decorated on the walls, but completely spartan and zen in furniture, sheets, and pillow scheme going on. Fareeha had medals and fighter pilot posters on her wall.

Himself, he hadn’t had anything. He’d just cleaned up the area, dusted, used the base sheets and not much else. Now, though…

Now, he had a few soft pillows he had gotten from Gabriel, of all people. He had a weird knickknack Ana had given him, some weird perpetual motion machine. He had a piece of art that McCree had just… left outside his room, with a weird almost semi-casual throwaway comment about how it just didn’t ‘fit in’ with the décor of McCree’s room.

It felt more like a home, especially with the fact that he’d been in more of the missions, gotten used to training with them, being the grumpy old man foil to their youthful overexuberance. Hell, even Wil had become a bit more relaxed with him, more willing to joke and interact with him.

He accessed the messaging app and frowned at the unknown ISP that was blinking there. He wasn’t sure he should tap on it… but maybe it was Gabe, for some reason. Hesitantly, he tapped on the icon.

 **ISXO.248.399.746.89.inbox_recieved_STAMP03.11.77** // _Hey, your conversation is going to literally give me diabetes. Square up and get him out of Talon._

Jack stared at the message, frowning. It was… someone. The tone of the message sounded familiar—almost sounded like the source he had used at the beginning of the year to track down Gabe and look for Talon activity—but that was so weird that it had to be someone or something else.

_What do you mean? Who is this?_

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP03.11.77

There was no immediate reply, and so he switched his attention to Gabe’s messages. They had been talking back and forth—mostly about some weird pop song that it seemed to be on everyone’s speakers and hummed under everyone’s breath. Then Gabe mentioned that Widowmaker—well, Gabriel still called her Amelie, even if he admitted she seemed to hate it because it reminded her of what she had lost—would still offhandedly hum the music of Swan Lake, and Jack reminisced of how Amelie would always convince Gerard to dance at the holiday parties—

Then another message popped up.

 **ISXO.248.399.746.89.inbox_received_STAMP03.11.77** // _You don’t need to know who this is, you just need to pull him out. He’s not doing well here. He needs you to rescue him, do the whole white knight schtick, everything you Overwatch morons are good at doing. What are you waiting for? A signed invitation?_

A message from Gabriel popped up as well.

 **ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP03.11.77** // _She always has to keep her rifle and ammunition so carefully, and she gets so upset when someone moves them. I get it, in a way, but it drives me up the wall sometimes._

Jack read the message twice, and then hesitated over his response. Finally, he figured he didn’t have anything to lose by asking, or trying to ask at least.

_Hey, Gabe?_

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP03.11.77

There was a pause, and then a response.

 **ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP03.11.7** // _Is everything okay, Jackie?_

_I don’t know—is everything alright with you? Is there—are there any problems? You doing okay?_

MESSAGE SENT: ISXO.248.399.785.31, STAMP03.11.77

A heartbeat of time, then another, and then another, Jack feeling tension rachet higher and higher.

Then—

 **ISXO.248.399.792.63.inbox_received_STAMP03.11.7** // _Why wouldn’t it be? I’m fine. I’m tired but what else is new? Always hungry._

Jack considered the message for a long moment. He had to trust Gabriel. It wasn’t like he could do anything else—wasn’t like he could storm the nearest Talon base and find Gabriel, and drag him out.

He put that strange, unknown message out of my mind. He had to hope that everything was fine.

Everything was fine.


	9. Interlude - McCree

Running security for an incoming shipment for ‘Reeha’s old employer, Helix Security, was more than a little ironic. Jesse wandered through the narrow alleys between the buildings that lined the dock here in Cairo, chuckling to himself a little at the fact that Helix Security needed security. Then again, Talon had been threatening multiple shipments that transported these advanced pneumatic compression units, and ‘Reeha had asked to make sure this transport arrived without problem.

Still, there was no proof of Talon activity, so Jesse just strolled up and down the tight, tiny streets thrown in shadows from the weak street lights and flashing neon further away from the docks. The glow of the city lit up the late night in the distance, but here on the pier and docks the light didn’t penetrate into the gloom between the squished together buildings.

“You are taking too long.”

Jesse dropped and rolled to the side, coming up with his pistol leveled at where he’d heard the voice, because that had been _motherfucking Widowmaker_ and how the _hell_ had she gotten behind him?! He was a dead man, such a dead man—

She wasn’t there.

He looked around wildly when a red dot appeared on his hand, then disappeared.

He froze.

That dot was most likely on his forehead, and he was _such a dead man_ —

But no accompanying shot came. There was no darkness, no sudden pain, nothing at all, just heartbeat after heartbeat pounding in his ears as he held himself as absolutely still as he could.

“Well?”

“I gotta say, I don’t rightly know what you’re lookin’ for,” Jesse said, proud that his voice didn’t shake in the least, eyes darting around for the angle until he caught sight of the sniper perched on a fire escape to his right.

“I have given you information. You have not acted upon it. I would like to know why you are taking this long.”

Jesse paused. Information? What information?

When there came no more helpful words, he decided that if he wasn’t dead yet, he might as well figure out what she was talking about. Stalling was his specialty, after all. “I’m not quite sure what information you’ve given me?”

She let out an impatient sound—though the barrel of her rifle remained fixed and pointed. “I have given you a way to contact Reaper, and am waiting for you to _get him out_. He is dying by degrees and he cannot remain where he is.”

Jesse knew all about Widowmaker, knew all about what had happened to poor Amelie. He’d never, in his life, even thought that Amelie was still in there, was still looking out for others. Talon’s brainwashing was pretty thorough, and allowed for no independent thought. Amelie-turned-Widowmaker had been a gun for Talon to point, and she had shot, no hesitation before, no issues. Hell, two or three of his bullet scars were from _her_ , and she regularly played ‘who’s-the-better-sniper’ with Hanzo on their missions, with near-deadly results. She was Talon’s, through and through.

So he had thought.

“You want us… you want _Overwatch_ … to get Reaper _out_ of Talon?” he repeated, drawl more than a little exaggerated as his brain was racing a mile a minute.

Again, another huff, and this time her voice was sharp with disapproval. “You cannot fool me, Jesse McCree. I know you are smarter than this. Play your games another time, with another person. At this distance my bullets will pierce that lovely body armor.”

Pulling a cigar from one of his pockets and placing it in his mouth, he clamped his teeth down and thought hard. “I’ll give you that, Amelie—”

“Amelie is _dead_!” she hissed, and this time, the barrel of her rifle jumped, just a bit, and he realized he’d struck a nerve. “Amelie has been dead for _years_!”

“Widowmaker, then,” he said easily, still not looking directly at her as he pulled out his lighter and fiddled with the cap, open and shut, open and shut, a repetitive clicking noise. “But I am still stuck on the fact that you want _us_ to kidnap Reaper. You think we can hold him?”

“I know Amari rejoined your group. Put him to sleep. It is not that hard,” she said dismissively. “All he really needs is to see Morrison and he won’t be calm and in control enough to keep his mind on whatever fool plan he has at the moment.”

Yeah, that sounded like the Gabriel Reyes Jesse remembered. Half of Gabriel’s life seemed to be him griping about Jack Morrison’s involvement in his life, and the other half was Gabriel getting involved in Morrison’s life.

“Y’might be right, but I ain’t too sure this ain’t a trap,” Jesse drawled. “How’n I know this is legit?”

Another displeased hiss, and Widowmaker growled, “Talk to Morrison. He has Reaper’s contact information. _Use_ it.”

A click, and then Widowmaker was swooping away with her little grappling hook.

Jesse waited one stressful heartbeat, then another, and then another, before letting out a long sigh. “Think we in the clear, darlin’?”

A soft pit-patter of feet, and then Hanzo dropped from the building and landed lightly next to Jesse. “I do not see her anymore.”

With a sigh, Jesse lit his cigar and breathed in the smoke slow and steady.

Hanzo punched him in the upper arm.

“Ow, what the hell, Hanzo?” he said, stumbling a step to the side.

“What did you think you were doing, talking with an enemy sniper who had their gun trained on you? Telling me to wait?! You could have died!”

Rubbing at his arm, he put on his best puppy-dog eyes. “That ain’t no reason to do harm to my person.”

“That is _every_ reason to do harm upon you, and worse!” Hanzo snarled, eyes flashing blue as the tattoos on his arm rippled with his emotions. “I was not here in time, Jesse! If she had desired to kill you, I would be standing here over your corpse!”

He smiled around the cigar at the corner of his mouth. “Exactly, sugar. If’n she wanted me dead, I’da been dead. She doesn’t want that. She wants somethin’ else.”

“If you think for one second I believe her and her ridiculous story that she wants us to _kidnap Reaper_ —”

“We might as well take ‘er up on ‘er offer,” Jesse pointed out. “If we can snatch Reaper—and Amelie, why not try for her too?—from Talon, they’ll be sure as hell weakened, with key operatives outta play. If not, if it’s a trap, us passin’ up the opportunity won’t teach us anythin’, or give us any info.”

Hanzo folded his arms—and Jesse understood, he got why Hanzo was upset and scared, and had he been in Hanzo’s place, not knowing what Jesse knew, not knowing that Jack had been in contact with Gabriel for almost a year now.

“I’ll explain, Hanzo, I swear it. For right now, I gotta bring this information to Winston so he can decide what to do.”

Hanzo paused, and regarded Jesse for a long moment before repeating, “You will inform Winston? Nothing hidden or held back?”

“I s’pose that’s fair to ask,” Jesse grumbled, beginning to walk back to the rest of the team. Hanzo _had_ caught him passing information to Jack more than a few times, and Jesse had been unapologetic. “But yeah. If we’re gonna be pulling two Talon members away and trying to make them part of the fold, then we’ll need Winston’s okay.”

Hanzo fell into step beside Jesse, an arrow still loosely nocked on his bow as they made their way back to the point they were supposed to be guarding. Well, not guarding, per se—they were making sure Talon didn’t attack an incoming shipment to Helix Security.

But the shipment was in, the wrap-up was almost complete, and Jesse hoped that this information would finally put an end to this ridiculous dance Gabriel and Jack were doing.

He paused a moment. “Hey, darlin’?”

Hanzo tilted his head, eyes cutting up to glance at Jesse.

“Why’d you listen to me? I know I was signalin’ you ta stay clear, but you ain’t never listened to what I wanted before.”

Hanzo’s eyes narrowed, anger clouding his face. “When I came, her scope was trained on your chest—and she moved it, immediately, to your forehead.”

That wasn’t the full answer, and Jesse tried to figure out how to nicely ask why Hanzo hadn’t tried to intervene when Amelie had gotten angry—compounded by the fact that he hadn’t wanted Hanzo to intervene, as per the clicking of his lighter and his cigar that were both cues for Hanzo to stay back. Hard to ask someone why they let you do something stupid when asking meant you admitted you knew you were doing something stupid.

“When I started forward at her anger, regardless of her rifle trained on you—because, of course, after I hit her, it would have been a fifty-fifty chance of her shot going high and missing your head—she moved her scope.”

Jesse could take issue with that statement, delivered so matter-of-factly, especially considering that a fifty-fifty chance was still a gamble—but he found another part of the sentence strange. Moved the scope? In general, snipers didn’t use scopes unless they were bluffing, but Amelie had used hers to get Jesse’s attention—and, clearly, to threaten Jesse when Hanzo would have intervened. But where would she have moved it too? Heart or head, those were the two most threatening, and while headshots were immediate and fatal, body shots would land for sure because of just how much mass there was, and what little chance there was to miss. Pointing that scope to threaten anywhere else could, well, could kill, but it wouldn’t be as certain as those shots. She must have aimed center-mass, at least, for Hanzo to be unsure about his ability to put her out before she pulled the trigger, but Hanzo had known Angela was on the mission with them, and would have been able to patch up any other wound besides a headshot. Where could she have aimed—

Hanzo stepped into Jesse’s space, patted his dick proprietarily, and then scaled the nearest building to perch up again.

Suddenly, Jesse knew _exactly_ where that little dot had hovered, and he winced.


	10. Our Families (love us)

Jack stepped into the briefing room and froze.

On the various screens around the conference room there was data on Reaper, on _Gabriel_ —patterns and locations and behaviors.

Jack whipped his head to look at McCree.

McCree was leaning back in his chair, the front legs suspended in the air, cowboy boots crossed at the ankle as he lifted on eyebrow at Jack.

Ana and Wilhelm stepped in behind Jack, Ana shoving at Jack to push him all the way into the room. “You are not a doorway, Jack,” she muttered, before her eye caught on the screen. For a brief moment, she looked taken aback, and then she tsked her tongue. “Are we finally going to find him?”

 _I have found him,_ Jack wanted to snap, wanted to snarl. _I’m figuring my way out, I’m not pressuring Gabe to do anything he’s not ready to do, we’re figuring shit out, why won’t you let us?_

But then he thought back to the short, almost distracted messages he’d been receiving. The increasingly critical and angry messages from that secondary ISP were becoming worrying.

Gabriel wouldn’t ever admit something was wrong, he knew that. He already proved he would do stupid shit like keep information from Jack because he was trying to protect Jack.

Slowly, he came in and pulled out a chair, looking around at the different screens and waiting to see what McCree’s plan was going to be.

When their newest recruit, Vaswani, entered the room, Winston cleared his throat and one of the screens enlarged to slide over all the others—a picture of Reaper, shooting at Lena in a museum setting.

Jack vaguely remembered that news report, seeing Reaper and thinking it was ridiculous that he couldn’t land a single shot. At the time, he hadn’t known who Reaper was—he’d just assumed it meant that it would be easy to subdue the international terrorist.

“This is Reaper, one of Talon’s top agents. He’s consistently embroiled in most if not all of Talon’s on-the-ground operations that have to do with securing high-security items, or attacking high-security targets. He’s been more or less impossible to catch, primarily because of his ability to ‘ghost,’” Winston began.

The screen shifted to show Reaper in the middle of one of his whirlwind attacks, unloading multiple bullets faster than it would appear to be humanly possible.

“Many of you may have heard of him, especially considering how many governments have him on their wanted lists, and how often he’s disrupted the peace in multiple countries. But what you most likely don’t know is that Reaper is actually an undercover Overwatch agent.”

Expressions of shock and surprise ricocheted around the room, murmurs and whispers as different agents leaned to the person next to them, muttering or hissing questions or attempts at explanations.

Jack folded his arms and sat stoically, using the impassive mask of his visor to mask his twisted scowl. If Winston knew he was undercover, why would he be revealing this information? Undercover agents worked effectively if _no one_ knew they were undercover. Unless…

Suddenly, McCree’s plan was all too clear, and he felt his shoulders tighten, torn between ecstatic joy and severe disapproval.

“Though, to be completely honest, this information is new even to myself, enough evidence has been gathered to prove conclusively that the agent known as Reaper has definitively been aiding and abetting not just the formation of this new iteration of Overwatch, but was the underlying factor for the recall and the slow international approval,” Winston continued.

“If ya just learnin’ about this like us, Winston, how’dja know he was helpin’, alla way back then?” Lena piped up.

Another screen was brought up, correlation lines to Reaper’s appearances and destruction with Overwatch intervention and international approval ratings spread out and data filing on the screen.

“The simplest answer, Lena, is that I would not even be bringing up this mission if I had not been thoroughly convinced that Reaper has always had our wellbeing at heart. Watching his behavior, he looks like a very incompetent soldier, someone who you could write off as accidentally bringing forth all this—but when you know his true identity—”

Gabriel Reyes’s face appeared on the screen, to shouts of anger and exclamation from the sitting agents.

“Order!” Winston barked, loud enough to cow almost everyone— _almost_ everyone.

“You cannot mean to tell me that Gabriel Reyes is _alive_ and _well_!” Wilhelm bellowed, standing up and knocking over the (admittedly, small) chair he had been sitting in previously.

“Does no one stay dead in this damn world anymore?” Torbjorn groused, folding his arms on the table.

Jack noticed that Angela looked markedly ashamed, eyes downcast, and that Genji looked appropriately surprised, his visor off to reveal his mouth twisted in shock. His brother, Hanzo, however, did not—which was interesting in and of itself.

Genji’s eyes cut over to where Jack was sitting, and then to his brother and McCree, and his mouth snapped shut as his eyes narrowed threateningly.

“Alive? Yes, it appears so,” Winston replied, bringing forth old— _old_ , heaven’s above, Jack remembered those videos from their days in the crisis, where did Winston even dig up those old relics—video clips of Gabriel’s fighting style, and then bringing up video clips of Reaper fighting in the watchpoint, and in the museum.

They were eerily similar, almost identical, and Jack felt like an idiot for not noticing before Ana had told him in Cairo.

(Another thing to apologize to Gabriel tonight, along with this debacle. Really, he didn’t know what McCree was thinking, but this wasn’t going to end up well no matter what happened.)

“Now, well… that’s a different story. Angela, would you care to explain what we know so far?”

She clearly looked out of place, as if she hadn’t expected to be put on the spot, and Jack watched with interest as she stood up, ever so briefly leaning on Fareeha for support before moving slowly to the pictures of Gabriel, letting her eyes travel over him as if he was someone she’d never seen before.

Then she let out a heavy sigh and turned to face the rest of them.

“Gabriel Reyes is, in part, alive because of my nano-bio technology. I was first on the scene after the explosion in Zurich, and I found Jack briefly—buried, and so I was unable to reach him—and he told me to look for Gabriel. So I moved through the rubble and found Gabriel. He was… in very bad shape.”

She tapped her fingers against her thigh, a motion of comfort and calming, before she took in a slow breath and continued, “I thought—I didn’t want to lose both of them. I thought I understood the SEP they had gone through, and the experimental process that had created their genome sequence, and I decided that all I really needed to do was jumpstart that SEP healing process they have. That _he_ had. In fact, his healing response is markedly higher than Jack’s, here, and he is, in a way, genetically designed to take more punishment and keep going. I thought I had a good chance, but what I ended up doing was overactivating the nanite cloud within him. I had not… expected it to react in such a virulent, in such a _viral_ and debilitating way. But before my eyes, he began to decay, and I thought… I had killed him. So I went back to, to Jack, but he was unconscious. By then, rescue vehicles and crews had arrived, and I had found others I could reach and help, so I directed them to both Jack and Gabriel and then… never heard about them again. In all honesty, I had thought they perished, and that the rescue crews had decided to spare me seeing and dealing with their bodies.”

Jack remembered Angela, then—in her very early thirties, barely more than a child, and she had always gotten so… so _hurt_ by everyone she could not help, by everyone she could not save. He turned his gaze to the pictures on the wall.

Clearing her throat, Angela continued, tapping some of the recent video footage of Reaper, “From what I can see here, the nanites remain overactivated, and certainly deadly. If not careful, they can consume his own body, and he must have copious amounts of organic material in order to replenish them. It is also probably how he replenishes his guns and his bullets, adapting to using his nanites to create weapons and ammunition for him in a way that would reduce the amount he would have to carry. If you look here, you can almost see that his mass has depleted, that he’s no longer as broad in chest or as tall after his shooting.”

Winston stepped forward, clapping her on the shoulder in a small show of companionship before moving to the screens, “McCree has apparently had contact with Widowmaker and Sombra, both of whom have insisted we are supposed to ‘take Reaper in’ and take care of him in some way. Now, of course, this could very well be a trap. In fact, I can think of no other reason for Talon to send us former operatives, except to make it more likely that we are attacked from inside. But, on the same hand, if this is _not_ a trap, we have a chance to launch a very serious blow against Talon by coopting one of their top agents and removing him from the playing field. If we do this—”

“Will he come?”

Winston paused, glancing over at Genji, who was looking at McCree with something akin to challenge in his eyes. “Will he come? We are not jailors, to be holding him hostage. If he will not come, how do you intend to hold him?”

“Exactly,” Winston agreed, and began to lay out his plan.

* * *

Jack needed to corner McCree, preferably with out that silent assassin by his side so that he could have… a _frank_ talk about what he thought of McCree’s decision to completely circumvent Jack and Gabriel’s plans.

Luckily—or maybe by design, Jack didn’t care at the moment—McCree was out on the rocky cliff outside of the main hangar, staring out over the water and smoking that cigar of his.

Outside, there was just the midday sun beating down on them, and the roar of the sea hitting the rocks below them. In the very far distance, Jack could see the huge liners shipping cargo across the Mediterranean.

“You had no right to do that,” Jack growled finally, hands in his pocket as he debated zipping up his jacket, even in the heat, just to keep the spray from wetting his underarmor and making it uncomfortable to wear.

McCree exhaled smoke pouring out of his mouth, and drawled, “To do what? To bring a potential asset to Winston’s attention?”

“That’s not what I mean and you goddamned well know it,” Jack growled, shifting restlessly. “I was… we were handling it. He didn’t want to come back yet.”

There was a beat of silence, and then McCree sighed. “So I’m gonna say my piece and you’re gonna listen to me, and yer not gonna interrupt or I’mma pop you in the goddamned nose.”

Jack turned his head to stare at McCree, unimpressed.

(Not that anyone could tell, since, you know. Visor. Pros and cons.)

McCree didn’t even acknowledge Jack’s gaze, just kept staring out over the sea’s waves. “Now, I know yer tryin’ ta make up for all the shit ya missed when you were in charge. I see ya, tryin’ with Lena an’ ‘Reeha an’ even _Winston_. Even though you hate that science shit. Th’boss’s probably said some shit about how he gotta finish what he’s started, an’ what he’s doin’, and that’s all well an’ good, but yer too much th’ one way. Sombra said she’s been tellin’ ya he’s in a bad way. Hell, _Widowmaker_ took th’ time ta corner me on my most recent mission an’ yell at me fer not getting’ him outta whatever situation they think is so terrible for ‘im. An’ maybe you never saw it, but he allas wuz puttin’ th’ biggest burden on his shoulders, allas tryin’ ta be atlas all on ‘is lonesome. If he needs help, yer doin’ ‘im more harm’n good leavin’ ‘im to his devices.”

“That _doesn’t matter_ because if I ignore what he wants, then how am I any better than—”

“Dammit, Morrison, that’s _exactly_ what I’m talkin’ about!” McCree snapped, turning around, and there was real fear in his eyes, in his voice. “D’ya really think Widowmaker an’ Sombra would be tellin’ us to get ‘im out if they thought he could handle himself? We all know he’s a stubborn _bastard_ , d’ya think that woulda changed just ‘cause yer textin’ each night?!”

Jack had been deliberately doing his best to _not_ think about all the danger Gabriel was in, all the ways things could go wrong, and he really didn’t appreciate McCree pointing it all out. Yes, he’d noticed problems and could read between the lines when Gabriel was trying to hide his emotions; yes, he’d noticed that Gabriel was having more and more difficulty finding time to text to him and their conversations were now very short, but he’d been trying to trust Gabriel’s word and respect his boundaries the way Gabriel had been so upset about before.

“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” he snarled, seriously wishing he had something hurl against the wall. He used to have a number of breakables in his office that he’d take great pleasure in breaking after one of his and Gabriel’s fights.

(He’d cleaned up his own mess, of course. And Gabriel always bought him breakable shit the next day. Back then, he’d taken it as Gabriel just assuming his anger was easily bought and fixed; now, he wondered if it had always been an apology and an outlet Gabriel had tried to give him.)

“Look, Morrison, I ain’t gonna pretend I understand yer relationship. Hell, I have problems in my own alla time. But I’m gonna go out on a limb an’ say y’all need ta communicate, and respect boundaries an’ shit, but y’all also gotta be there for each other, even when th’ other don’t want ya ta be. He has a right ta be worried when you do stupid shit like _running ahead of th’ damn payload an’ nearly dyin’ ‘cause yer fool self thinks yer invincible_ , and y’have a right ta be worried and offer help.”

They stood there silently for a moment more, and then McCree added softly, “An’ I gotta right ta try an’ help. We all do. Yer our goddamned granpa an’ we think y’oughta be helped, an’ taken care of.”

For a long moment, Jack didn’t know what to do with the emotion swelling in his chest. Finally, he choked out, “Do you treat Ana like your grandmother, then?”

“Oh, hell no, not to ‘er face at least,” McCree responded instantly. “She has a nasty habit o’ puttin’ a fella t’sleep an’ leavin’ him in… _interestin’_ positions fer others ta find.”

Jack cleared his throat, blinking his eyes to try and stop them from traitorously watering and tearing up behind his mask. “Well,” he said roughly, and then stopped.

But McCree seemed to know what he meant. “Well,” he agreed, and dropped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You taught us well, old man. Y’can’t be mad we learned yer lessons an’ now use ‘em. And, shit, he may still decide not ta stay. I hope he does. I hope like hell he does because I gotta piece of my mind to share with the sunnovabitch, an’ I think I deserve th’ chance to say it.”

With that, McCree stubbed out his cigar and sighed. “We do shit for others we wouldn’t normally do. Hanzo has me on one cig a day, an’ he’s even tryin’ ta get me to cut down on that. But I’m doin’ it, because he’s my world. You do shit, an’ you do it because he’s yer world. And he’ll do shit, because yer _his_ world. Y’allas have been.”


	11. A New Beginning - Reaper

Gabriel was fucking tired.

He didn’t want to do this anymore, and he was tired of having to pretend otherwise. He was tired of pretending to bow and scrape to Akande, to put up with all the shit Moira put him through, to just train and lead Talon operatives regularly.

He kept his mask and his hood on, all the, even for the majority of time in his own quarters. The mask and cloak had nanite receptors, things that helped hold the nanite cloud his body was made up of remember what the hell shape he was supposed to be in.

It was just so… _exhausting_ , to be living like this. He was more inorganic than organic material, now, and he couldn’t reliably control all the incoming and outgoing information. Each nanite had its own low-level sensor, so he was constantly bombarded by information from all directions. Hell, half the reason he kept himself covered from head to toe was because it kept his nanites from sensing anything at all, letting just his eyes pick up the information he needed. Being naked with Jack had been… the most exposed he’d been in for a long time, at least in a non-laboratory setting where he was forced to be exposed. And it had helped that his body and every iota of his attention had been devoted and focused on Jack, but even to this day he could accurately remember the air pressure, the exact temperature of the different spots in the room, the different lighting levels, the different air currents…

So. He was tired.

And he was tired of Sombra’s incessant hinting that he find someone and—and what, he didn’t know. He would almost accuse her of watching and reading over his messages with Jack, except he was sure she’d hold that over his head and blackmail him because of it. Why else would she be reading those messages?

And the way she was, her personality, she would taunt him with his sentimentality until the day he died, if she was reading his messages.

So he had to assume that Sombra wasn’t aware of his messages, and just—what, wanted him to be happy? He didn’t know. He had no fucking idea. He just wanted to be left alone, dammit.

He had so much proof, so much stockpiled up, but _nothing_ that tied the upper level of Talon to their deeds. Hell, he even figured out who had initially gone and poisoned Overwatch from the beginning—and it _had_ been Overwatch that had been infiltrated by Talon first, though Blackwatch had followed almost immediately afterwards, so suck _that_ , Jack—but he didn’t have that last bit that would tie this up in a neat bow. That would make all the shit and atrocities he’d seen and had to be a party to worth it.

…Though he’d taken great pleasure hunting down former Overwatch and Blackwatch agents that had been, in fact, Talon agents. He didn’t regret any of those at all.

He, Widowmaker, and Sombra had all been assigned to infiltrate and take out a high-level politician that was blocking Talon from trafficking through the borders of this country. It had been Russia before, and Afghanistan before that, and Gabriel was pretty sure it was Ukraine today. He didn’t much care—Widowmaker was the one tasked with taking out the target, his job was just to keep her safe. Well, his and Sombra’s job—Sombra was supposed to erase their digital footprint, and he was to erase any witnesses.

Sombra had disappeared and run ahead, as she so often was wont to do, and he and Widowmaker were making their way to Widowmaker’s vantage point when suddenly she stopped.

He paused, and looked at her in confusion. “ _Hermanita_?”

“Oh no,” she said, voice flat and dry. “What a surprise. There are too many. I cannot help you.”

He blinked, and then something pinched at his arm. He looked down to see—

A familiar. Goddamned. _Dart_.

“Hijo _de puta_ ,” he snarled, even as he began to lose control of his nanite cloud.

“You have been captured. Oh no,” Widowmaker stated.

“If I wake up and you’re not there, I’ll _fucking_ leave and find you!” he snarled, vision and nanite input going fuzzy.

Which is when he saw a dart appear in her arm.

He blacked out laughing.

* * *

He came to, woozy and uncoordinated, and blinked at the jet. He was lying on the ground, though Widowmaker was strapped into a seat, and he found his limbs were still unable to respond to him, to reply to him in any way. The nanites were buzzing uncomfortably, too much information filtering into his brain, and he couldn’t even force his vocal cords to form so he could groan or grunt from the pain fizzing through all his neural receptors.

“—can’t actually do anything about it.”

“Don’t think I’m going to forget you made me sit down on the floor while all of you took the chairs.”

Gabriel knew that voice. It was his Jackie.

Why was he hearing…

That fucking _sleep dart_.

He tried very hard to stand up, and his limbs shivered and writhed against the floor, pain lighting up every single nerve ending.

A hand came, and it felt almost like it went _through_ where his head was.

That was wrong. His head was solid.

As he thought it, he _felt_ his face reform, felt everything start to coalesce. That hand met resistance, and then stroked down his cheek.

His mask!

He pushed up, flailing, trying to figure out who was around him, what was happening.

“Easy, easy, Gabe, it’s me, it’s fine.”

“My mask, my—”

A thumb stroked down his cheek, seeming to ignore the uneasy shifting of the nanites. “It’s ok, it’s right here next to you if you need it, but we weren’t sure you were… breathing. Ana wanted to make sure she hadn’t killed you.”

“Bitch,” he managed to growl out.

“Takes one to know one, _habibi_.”

He let his eyes crack open and he glared at up blindly, searching for the voice he could hear vaguely above him. “Where is she?”

Instead of her, a familiar silhouette covered the overhead light of the transport, and he felt a deep desire to knock that ridiculous Stetson off of that dumbass head. “It’s the damn ingrate.”

“Nice to see you, too, _jefe_. S’pose I shouldn’t have expected any gratitude, huh?”

“Gratitude? You want damned gratitude?” he snarled, feeling his control over his voice and nanites as his emotions and body surged, pushing up unsteadily to his feet and shoving away from Jack to push forward, knocking McCree back into an Asian man who looked pissy—probably McCree’s partner—and his nanites whirled, too much information, too much misfiring of electrical signals. “I was trying to bring down Talon, _cabron_! What moron decided to pull off this half-assed, _unwanted_ , shitty-ass plan?!”

“ _Me extrañaste_?”

It was almost hilarious, how every Overwatch agent simultaneously jumped and whipped around to the voice as Sombra shimmered into existence two steps away from him.

Gabriel stared at her and felt his anger drain out of him, all his energy gone. “You _bitch_. This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

“For you, yes. Then they took my _arañita_ and I couldn’t just _stay_ there,” Sombra purred, patting Gabriel’s… not-really-solid… shoulder, and just… just gave him the breathing space to pull himself, physically, back together.

Jack stood up from the ground, reached out and cupped Gabriel’s elbow. “You good?” he asked, voice low. “You want me to undo this?”

For a long moment, Gabriel considered it. Considered telling Jack that this whole thing was crazy, that he wanted nothing to do with people who had long since written him off, that he and Widowmaker and Sombra couldn’t just _disappear_ like this, that Talon would tack them down—

But Gabriel could see the sincerity. Could see that Jack meant every single word, and would do whatever Gabriel wanted.

And… Gabriel was _tired_. Tired of hiding, of lying, of denying himself everything and anything because he had to play the bad guy and figure this shit out.

So he let out a long sigh, and let his shoulders fall.

The biggest smile lit up Jack’s face, and he stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Gabriel’s shoulders, and Gabriel had to smile in turn.

If he could make his _cielo_ happy, if he could do that, he’d be alright.

(Besides, if Sombra was here, it wouldn’t be hard to eventually find the proof he was looking for. If anyone could find it, it would be Sombra.)

“We’ll make it work,” Jack murmured into the juncture of Gabriel’s shoulder and neck. “We’ll make it work.”

And there was that damn kid, stepping up, grinning that infuriating grin. “Glad t’have y’back, _jefe_.”

There was Fareeha and Lena and Angela in the corner, and Genji in another corner. There was Ana and _Torbjorn_ and _Wilhelm_ , all crushed in a corner.

And there was his new family, too—Sombra, and Widowmaker waking up.

Everyone happy, grinning, smiling.

It was enough to make the corner of Gabriel’s mouth curl upwards, too.


End file.
